Will Gregory - Lost In The Forest (Music from the RSC's A Midsummer Night's Dream) (2025)

Will Gregory is an award-winning multi-instrumentalist, composer, record producer and one half of the electro-pop duo Goldfrapp. He is also the founding member of Will Gregory’s Moog Ensemble, who last year released their debut album Heat Ray: The Archimedes Project. Lost In The Forest: Music from the RSC’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is the music Gregory created for the RSC’s production of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which originally premiered in Stratford and then transferred to London, in late 2024, for a sold-out, five-star run at the Barbican.

The RSC production, directed by Eleanor Rhode and starring Matthew Baynton, Katherine Pearce, Sirine Saba, Boadicea Ricketts, Andrew Richardson and Dawn Sievewright, garnered many plaudits as ‘a ravishing fusion of flamboyancy, surrealism and raucous fun’ (The Guardian), and ‘a glorious production of Shakespeare's most spellbinding comedy…this truly is a night of fantasy’ (London Theatre).

Director Eleanor Rhode showed Gregory early set designs, with plans to make the fairies exist as light sources or light beams; ethereal, neon and a bit disconnected… This visual approach gave Gregory “a kind-of carte blanche to think about using synths and electronic sounds. We were on a pathway to using synths and making some sounds that reflected this tingling, fleeting electricity.”

“I actually wrote a lot of the music completely independently with the thought that there’s going to be a certain forest-y mood, there's going to be some songs, that's about all I knew… plus the ethereal, neon, flickering effect for the fairies. I demo’d some of it and sent it on, I like to send the director music, and was then able to get feedback from Eleanor while I was writing, which was really helpful.”

“I've always liked music in theatre or film where the music is strong enough to stand on its own two legs. Some of the time you're doing a mood that is very much in the background and, here, we've got dialogue… We’ve got Shakespeare! You don't want to trample all over that, obviously. It's always great when you can get the music to run in parallel rather than completely underscoring what's happening on stage. And sometimes Eleanor would put it somewhere I hadn’t imagined which was fantastic.”

“Also, as a composer, when you feel ‘I'm actually functional here’, I'm able to help the technical process of getting from one scene to another to happen, with a little interlude, that always makes me feel good…”

Martyn Barker, drums, guitar, additional vocals
Andy Davis, guitar, bass, additional vocals
Alex Lee, guitar, bass, additional vocals
Andy Taylor, guitar, additional vocals
Will Gregory, synthesizers, additional vocals
Katherine Pearce, vocals

TRACKLIST

1. Will Gregory - Threatening Bass
2. Will Gregory - Globes and Bubbles
3. Will Gregory - Titania's Lullaby
4. Will Gregory - Bubble Sky
5. Will Gregory - Oberon's Deceit
6. Will Gregory - Robin's Song
7. Will Gregory - Loverlorn Aftermath
8. Will Gregory - Falling Star
9. Will Gregory - Mist Clearing
10. Will Gregory - Bottom's Song