Well, it's Bergamo today, we're right down in the centre of Bergamo, and I'm about to

bring a surprise on Matt, we're just having a coffee and doing our prep. Matt, do you

know much about midsummer night stream? I don't, I'll be honest with you, no I don't.

Fair enough, you know it's a Shakespeare play. Oh yes, I do know it's Shakespeare play,

and I know there's, is there an imp in it, or like a little fairy in it? Yes, yeah,

puck, puck, puck, the fairy. Yeah, there's another character in midsummer night stream called

bottom, which is obviously funny. Bottom gets, puck actually transforms bottom into a donkey.

Right, it gets donkey's ears, but bottom is the lead actor in what's called the mechanicals,

and they're a group of working class chaps, who put on a play for the aristocracy at the end,

when there's a big festival at the end, and everyone's, everything's resolved between

this sort of like the lovers, you know, who get kind of like lost in the forest, and they will

find each other at the end, and then these characters, these mechanicals, put on a play,

a tragedy of Pyramus and Thisby for the royal court, who like sit there and mock them,

because they can't act very well, I know this sort of thing. And bottom is the slightly pig-headed,

well actually donkey-headed lead character in that, and but there is no mention Shakespeare

in midsummer night stream, there's an ongoing debate, I think, in the academic world,

as to whether or not Shakespeare ever visited Italy. Oh, right. Yeah. Okay, and is that sort of

with not writing all of his stuff as well, or is that kind of different? Yeah, there's a lot of

shrouded in mystery, isn't it? Shrouded in mystery, but he wrote, you know, a lot of his plays are

set in Italy, Romeo and Juliet, set him for Rona, you know, he seems to know a lot about Italy

in quite some detail, and Bergamo in particular, he knows that there's a local dance,

is the Bergamask, which is a part of the festival here, a traditional festival, the Bergamask

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