A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

Unfolds Theatre at the Rose Playhouse

04.08.17

for Remote Goat

A Dream to add to the pantheon, to join the “bathroom accessories” and the “30s Hollywood”, both from Shakespeare's Globe.

The theme this time is fairground. It works perfectly in this space, renowned for its chamber Shakespeare in an immersive style.

“Roll up, roll up ...” from the foyer, where you're encouraged to pin the tail on the donkey's bottom, to the intimate performance area, [Sullivan's hymn on the calliope], where there's inflatable hoopla and a card trick in which Verona meets Athens.

Once the main event gets underway, the gimmicks are reined in, with little details – the candyfloss, the inflatable dainty ducks, the goldfish-in-a-bag lanthorn – to bring us back to Dreamland, the name picked out in fairy lights over the water.

Alex Pearson, who has years of experience of bringing the Bard to life within these walls, gives us a lively, physical and very entertaining Dream. The grouping is perfectly planned, the rehearsal sequence wickedly observed. The mischief in the wood is lively and often very funny, the boys wrestling on the forest floor as the girls spar verbally. Theseus and Hippolyta dance cheek to cheek, the lovers sleep on the further shore, which does seem a little less involving after the proximity of the Mechanicals and Titania's bower.

A cast of eight, with much doubling. Not just the obvious Titania/Hippolyta [Cindy-Jane Armbruster] and Theseus/Oberon [beautifully spoken by Ian Hathway], but Robert Hazle, impressive both as an aggrieved Egeus and a fussy Quince, Rhiannon Sommers as Hermia, eloping with her luggage, and a shy Snug, hiding behind her buoyancy-aid Lion. Nick Oliver is a compelling, lustful Lysander, casual in a tee-shirt, as well as Starveling, Clark Alexander Demetrius, formal in a collar and tie, as well as a hilarious Thisby. His Pyramus – their death scene endlessly inventive – is Sydney Aldridge, pulling off the tricky double of Helena, comfort eating when the course of true love runs less than smooth, and Nicky Bottom, done as a sulky teen diva, slurping a slushy, chomping on a carrot as she recalls her dream. A triumph in the role, the most memorable female Bottom since Dawn French's wartime Dream of 2001. Equally engaging is Elinor Machen-Fortune's Puck; she's also an officious Philostrate, introducing the interlude and the Bergamasque jig, before coming back as Robin Goodfellow to bid us goodnight.

The audience is frequently drawn in to the action – as confidants, and, in the case of front-row Ricky, to play a very convincing Wall.

With his new company Unfolds Theatre, producer Pepe Pryke has brought to Shakespeare's Bankside an enchanting summer show for all the family – “swift as a shadow, short as any dream...” 

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

Romford Summer Theatre at the Rockery, Raphael's Park
29.06.2017


This year is Romford Summer Theatre's 55^th season; it's no criticism to say that this production could have graced the Rockery at any point in that impressive history.
Chrissie O'Connor gives us a traditional take on the dream – Greco-Roman frocks, Mendelssohn's music – with a strong cast and a clear, positively-paced narrative. Not to mention an infectious sense of fun. No gimmicks, but the show does boast a child – Lucas Outram playing the all-important Indian Boy – and two canine characters: an elegant hound for the hunt, and a dog for Starveling's Moonshine.
It's the Shakespearean comedy best suited to this unique theatre space, perhaps, and excellent use is made of the “brakes” in the shrubbery, dotted with little lanterns as night falls, and the trees magically lit as the fairies lurk within the wood to watch the mischief play out.
Much of it concerning the hapless quartet of lovers; good work here from the young actors – the four-way tiff, the foggy fight with Puck, the lively dialogue between the girls – Eleanor Burgess and Amy Hollingsworth – Andrew Spong's eager Lysander and Jake Portsmouth's hilarious awakening.
The Court – the Duke and his Hippolyta well spoken by Colin Richardson and Emily Catlin – is graced by two experienced character players: Vernon Keeble-Watson's grumpy Egeus and Elliott Porte's pompous Philostrate, vainly trying to spare the wedding guests the ordeal of watching a bunch of amateur actors …
Those rude mechanicals – organised, if that's the word, by Paul Hollingsworth's Quince – stars Paul Sparrowham's Bottom. His ass-head is furry; his triumph in the role of Pyramus marred by paralysing stage-fright, alleviated by a handy flagon. His increasingly inebriated performance is pure genius, slurring his lines and relieving himself against Pete Farenden's Wall. Lots of clever detail here – the beards in the props basket, Mark Griffith's Snug conning the Lion's part, though it be nothing but roaring ...
The immortals are led by excellent fairy monarchs – Lindsay Hollingsworth's stunning Titania in her star-spangled gown, and Matt Jones's regal Oberon, with a touch of Herne the Hunter, his verse-speaking exemplary in I Know A Bank, for example. Four Fairies – we see them first in the overture – their dresses, colour-coded, reminiscent of fantastical festival-goers – included Chrissie LeFranc's Moth, with some magical flute-playing, and Kathryn Waters' white-wigged Cobweb; she's also the first fairy, doing a little light gardening before being ambushed by Richard Spong's Puck. He's a very mischievous hobgoblin, got up like a faun, searching the audience for Athenians, perching for a moment in Titania's woodland bower, freezing the mechanicals in mid-rehearsal.
This is not Athens, but Havering's Edwardian Raphael Park. Lucky to have no wind, or rain, a comfortable temperature and only the occasional waterfowl and birdsong to punctuate Shakespeare's sylvan comedy. A very pleasant evening; as Theseus says, “ never anything can be amiss, When simpleness and duty tender it ...”

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

Offspringers at the Cramphorn Theatre

14.03.17

Shakespeare 4 Kidz has been sugar-coating the Bard for years, and their shows have become increasingly popular with youth groups like Offspringers.

As recent Dreams go, Sarah Dodsworth's production is agreeably traditional in tone. Pretty fairies, Athenian columns, stylish white trees. Excellent costumes, and some striking stage pictures: the back-lit bubbles, the top-lit quartet with the fairies thronging round their feet. The band – in a bower of their own – accompanies the Disney-ish songs [MD Kate Gowen]. The plot – arranged marriage and all – survives more or less intact, and the Indian Boy [Dominic Bushell] is given a whole production number for his back-story. Some of the “rhymes from yesterday” are preserved too, and the original verse for the scene and the song for Bluebell [Charlotte Golden] and Rose Gowen's pert Puck is one of the best moments.

A huge cast – some of them very small sprites – includes the Tipsy Bacchanals and the [thrice] three Muses, and some very promising performances. Ore Kane is an imposing Duke Theseus, Jack Funnell a mischievous Lysander, with Charlotte Podd his Hermia. The mechanicals, with their “tacky play”, all give splendidly engaging performances – Matt Scott is the wittiest weaver in town, Max Eagle a bossy Quince, with Esther Hemmings a lovely Lion, Abbie Gansbuehler the tinker, Amy Smethurst the tailor and James Birchmore doing some serious breast-imbruing as Thisbe.

Lively movement, impressive ensemble work, and a shared sense of fun for this, the most accessible of Shakepeare's comedies. Very much enjoyed by the first- night audience. But, if the work is to appeal to a public beyond friends and family, every one of these enthusiastic actors needs to remember the importance of concentration and staying in character.

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

at the New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich

22.06.2016


Stars and portents align to celebrate the Wolsey's 15^th birthday year. Opening on Midsummer Night, 400 years after Shakespeare's death, this Dream brings Trevor Nunn back to his home town, where he saw his first ever Shakespeare [the Dream, of course] at the age of 12. And it means he's now directed, in his long and illustrious career, every one of the 37 plays.
We're in 1930s India, the height of the Raj, with the Duke as the Viceroy. It's a concept that fits beautifully, intellectually as well as artistically.
It makes sense of Hermia's forced marriage, for one thing. There's a wonderfully telling moment as Pyramus & Thisbe ends, and Bottom explains that the wall is down that parted their fathers.
It seems the norm now to airbrush Athens out of the text, but otherwise Shakespeare's words survive intact, if trimmed a little, and the verse is universally well spoken.
Matt Rawle and Fiona Hampton are the upper-crust couple – he sports a pith helmet for the hunt - and also of course Oberon and Titania. Sam Dastor is excellent as Egeus, the old-fashioned father of the bride, and Michelle Bishop manages a unique double as First Fairy and Phyllis [ … straight …], aide to Theseus, and the only character to change name or gender.
The colourful Fairy Band, moving expressively in the background, are children – casting which would not look out of place in Irving's Lyceum. By contrast the Indian Boy, bone of contention between the Fairy King and Queen, wears a plain white costume.
The quartet of lovers are superbly done – Neerja Naik is poor Hermia, Assad Zaman her Demetrius. Harry Lister Smith, in his wonderful cream Brideshead suit, is a very posh Lysander, and Imogen Daines is a hilarious “maypole” Helena, drinking and smoking as she's rejected. Act III scene 2 – another part of the wood, and the opening of Part Two in this production – is brilliantly choreographed, from the moment when Esh Alladi's lithe Puck and Oberon glide into hiding to Hermia's bemused exit.
The Rude Mechanicals are itinerant tradesman, each bringing the tools of his trade. The absent Weaver, for example, is represented by a bobbin of scarlet thread on a mat, possibly of his own making. Kulvinder Ghir makes a wonderful Bottom: his “dream” monologue is exemplary, his warm-up before the rehearsal a delight. Muzz Khan is a gormless Starveling, his Moon waning as Ghir's operatic Pyramus milks his big scene. And Deven Modha's Flute brings real feeling to his Thisbe, quietly out-performing the blustering Bottom.
Libby Watson's design is glorious – the gorgeous palace, the deep dark wood, the pastoral patchwork of fields suggesting Puck's flight – and splendidly lit by Mark Jonathan – Titania's bower backlit by moonlight.
We're spoilt for Dreams this year – on the BBC, at the RSC, in the Globe. This provincial wonder is probably the most important, and certainly one of the most deliciously enjoyable.

production photo by Mike Kwasniak

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

at Shakespeare's Globe

30.04.16



Shakespeare's text cut and “improved”. Extraneous songs and dances making for a long evening.
No, not Emma Rice's “Wonder” Dream but Purcell's “Restoration Spectacular” The Fairy Queen, first staged in London more than 300 years ago. Nothing new under the watery moon.
Very much a calling-card production from Rice, taking the helm at Shakespeare's Globe following two decades from Rylance and Dromgoole.
A lacy metal forest outside the building. “WONDER” in lights over one of the merchandise carts. And inside, huge white balloons fill the sky, and semi-transparent green tree-trunks hang down into the yard.
Over the doors, two tech desks, signalling another departure: amplification and lighting effects. Of course, as is often argued, Shakespeare would have used them had they been available. But they weren't, and he didn't. And certainly not in this space, designed for a very different style.
“Rock the Ground” - a quote from Act Four – in neon at the back of the stage. A lengthy, uncanonical, but very funny prologue introduces the Globe Stewards who will become the rude mechanicals. Rita Quince and her crew, with Health and Safety Officer Nick Bottom the only man.
We're a long way from Warwickshire. In a weird Grexit, Athens is expunged, and the woods given a local habitation and a name – London, Bankside, Hoxton. Hipsters weeds are the lovers' choice: no longer two of each kind, since one of the couples is gay.
The feel is of an Indian wedding – Tanika Gupta the dramaturg here – and sitar music underscores much of the action. The songs – sometimes settings of Shakespeare's verse – range wider, with George Formby and David Bowie sharing the bill.
The rough magic of the Fairies is energetic, with much choreography. They are Tudor-clad, but it is dressing-up, since Katy Owen's engagingly nimble Puck has flashing trainers and a day-glo water pistol, and Zubin Varla's menacing Oberon swigs from a plastic bottle of cheap cider.
Lots of laughs, though not all of them are Shakespeare's doing. Mixed fortunes for the text - “you ugly bitch” is not a modern equivalent of Lysander's cruel but witty put-down. Meow-Meow's Titania delivers the nine-men's-morris speech movingly; Ankur Bahl's Helenus has a lovely soliloquy in the first scene.
The Pyramus and Thisbe sequence benefits from being trimmed, and is very amusingly done by the mechanicals with Rita Quince at the keyboard.
But as “Jill will have Jack / No looking back” is warbled as the play closes, it suddenly seems a “long age of three hours”.

I'm not sure I'm one of the “purists” and “traditionalists” whose reservations many reviews have airily dismissed. I've seen, and loved, some radical Dreams in my time: lesbian lovers, a boarding school, early Hollywood. But I found it hard to warm to this lively, loud staging, full of tricks and ideas, which seems to be aimed especially at people who don't really get Shakespeare. Of whom, unless she has been seriously misrepresented by the media, Emma Rice is one. Meant, surely, as a celebration of this place, in this anniversary year, it comes across as apologetic and patronising: you'll like this play better if we sugar the pill with gimmicks and jokes. Let's hope that the new audiences it brings in will stay for what looks like a varied season, finishing with a revival of last year's Merchant of Venice.

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

Theatre at Baddow at the Village Hall

03.06.15

Puck and the fairies are frequently female; Dawn French was a wonderful Bottom a few years back. But a quartet of lesbian lovers – “Jill shall have Jill” - is surely a first, just one of the fresh ideas in Jim Crozier's updated Dream.

No such liberalism in the Athenian trade guilds, though, where the rude mechanicals – a plumber and a brickie now in their ranks – are all blokes. The patriarchal society that allows Peter Nerreter's fine Egeus to invoke the “law strictly provided”, even in equal marriage, shows no sign of softening.

Modern dress all round, with colourful Romany-themed garb for the fairy denizens of the Athenian wood. Modern music too, with a nice original score from Owain Jones, and Daft Punk for the boom-box bergamasque.

The hard-working cast includes Barry Taylor's compelling, stylish Oberon, Diane Johnston 's Titania enthusiastically lusting after Bob Ryall's Bottom, with his lecherous bray. Natalie Patuzzo makes an entertaining teenage Puck, high-fiving the audience and radiating mischief. Liam Mayle stands out in the theatricals – an amusingly thespian Thisbe. Nicholas Milenkovic makes a poised, polished Philostrate.

The lovers are never an easy call, and there is little fun in their misadventures here – some strong performances, though, with good verse speaking from Mabel Odonkor's Lysanda in particular.

Moonshine's back-pack dog, Flute's smartphone, the disco dancing, the factory hooter and the car horn, the moody fairies and the torn leggings – all evidence of a fertile imagination and a desire to please a 21^st century audience. But pointless pauses and lacklustre delivery tend to impede “the passion of loud laughter” in this otherwise interesting and entertaining Dream.

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

Brentwood Shakespeare Company and Ingatestone and Fryerning Dramatic Club

06.07.14

In the bosky brakes of Ingatestone Hall, a Dream that mingled the traditional and the iconoclastic. A large cast included many seasoned players, and Lisa Matthews' production for the Brentwood Arts Festival was not short of ideas.

Not least the attempt to get back to the spirit of Shakespeare's playhouse; indeed this could easily have been a [generously funded] troupe of itinerant actors pitching up at the Tudor Hall with a rough grasp of the drama, a trunk of assorted costumes and a dog or two to steal the odd scene. Hence their panic, perhaps, when Quince [Keith Morgan] mentions “tomorrow night”, and hence, for some, their shaky acquaintance with the text.

Breeze and aircraft are a challenge to the actor [though the vintage planes made a change from the police helicopters that plague Shakespeare's Globe]. Not everyone was audible all the time. Most successful in this regard were Elliott Porte's Theseus, and Nik Graham's amusingly narcissistic Lysander. And the scene between Sarah Thomson's Fairy and Chrissie O'Connor's charismatic Irish Puck was a model of crispness and clarity.

Assured comedy performances from David Lintin in his Del Boy Bottoms Up t-shirt, Ian Russell as an initially coy, later histrionic Flute, and June Fitzgerald as a lovely cuddly Snug the Lion. The lovers' spat was nicely done, and the fairies had some spectacular choreography to the eclectic score.

Chris Burr's acting edition [in the trim-and-rewrite tradition of the 18^th and 19^th century Shakespeareans] sets the action in prehistoric Britain [though the lovers looked pretty Athenian to me], and Mark Godfrey's blokish “Sandman” Oberon has some rough magick of his own; a pity, though, to rob Puck of her valediction for the sake of some Wiccan silliness ...

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

Deafinitely Theatre at Shakespeare's Globe

07.06.2014

Deafinitely Theatre had a Globe to Globe hit in 2012 with their Love's Labours Lost.

They were asked back this year, and chose A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Using an eloquent blend of British Sign Language, Visual Vernacular and Shakespeare's verse, it tells the familiar story in an engaging, entertaining couple of hours.

Director Paula Garfield sets the play in the City – not Athens, but London's Square Mile. With Theseus and Hippolyta CEOs of rival banks. There's an ecological fable in there somewhere too.

The “flowery bed” - a constant presence and eventually the stage for Pyramus & Thisbe – is surrounded Emin-style by garbage. Bottom's transformation uses recycled materials, too. The wall is made of box files, the mechanicals are now Middle Management. As so often with the Dream, it's these comic characters who go down best with the audience – Peter Quince would fit in well in The Office, with his self-importance and his iPad, patronisingly signing and mouthing at his actors, including a lovely lanky Flute from Jason Taylor, and a hilarious Bottom from David Sands.

The Lovers are well cast and well characterized too: Fifi Garfield's small dark Hermia against Charlotte Arrowsmith's maypole Helena.

Anna-Maria Nabirye plays a fairy who, along with Alim Jayda's excellent Puck, gives us some of Shakespeare's own words – it is Puck who holds the audience at the end, before the inevitable applause, both signed and audible.

There is music, too, used much as in a silent movie, to underscore the action and add atmosphere, with some witty references in the P&T show. It was composed especially by Philippa Herrick, who is also the musical director.

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

Immersion Theatre at the Civic Theatre Chelmsford

12.03.2014

Why can Colchester's theatre attract leading touring outfit Cheek By Jowl – their superb 'Tis Pity last month – and we in Chelmsford make do with this humdrum Midsummer Night's Dream from an unknown company ?

Immersion looked a little out of their element on the wide Civic stage, especially at the beginning, when there were some problems with audibility, too. It seems to have been much more at home in the 50-seater Brockley Jack.

That said, the smallish audience found the comedy to their taste, and the hard-working cast of nine included some amusing characters: James Clifford's irrepressible luvvie Bottom, the despair of his pretentious director, played by Rob Taylor-Hastings. The rest of the rude mechanicals made a good job of their comic tragedy – a squeaky-voiced Lion, a timid Moonshine.

The lovers, often tedious, were given some spirited sparring, encouraged by Ella Garland's enjoyably mischievous merry wanderer. And Nicola Dalziel spoke the verse with some style as Hippolyta and Titania.

This production – pared down to two hours, and allegedly set just before the Great War – was directed by James Tobias and Amy Gunn. It is in fact one of two versions they are touring. The other – the Nightmare – is apparently much darker. Fascinating to see both, of course, though few venues seem to have programmed this option, the Mumford in Cambridge an honourable exception.

and for The Public Reviews:

In a lifetime of Dreams, some stand out, subtitled like episodes of Friends.

The one with the pyjamas, the one set in World War II, the one evoking Hollywood's early years, the [operatic] one in an austere boys' school, the one lasting a bare twenty minutes …

This one is trailed as “set in Great Britain just before the start of the Great War … a time of unparalleled peace and prosperity”. Conjuring up a vision of Edwardian sunshine, a picnic with a gramophone, the lost generation obliviously partying … None of this, alas, in Immersion's tentative staging. Hard to date the costumes – the men's suits at the start look very modern, with Lysander, perhaps in anticipation of his nuptials, sporting morning dress. The set, with classical columns and a gauzy bower for Titania, gives few clues. And the music, though effective at enhancing a mood, is non-specific.

There are some good lighting effects – Puck the enchanter – but often key characters are stranded in darkness. The performances struggle to engage the audience, especially at the beginning.

Things look up when the Rude Mechanicals – stripped of their trades – come on, with jolly music and warm lighting.

And the evening includes some enjoyable characterizations. Rob Taylor-Hastings – an unfeasibly youthful Egeus – is amusing as the self-important Director Quince [though he makes a mess of his Prologue], impatient with his actors, joining the court in the audience, and then getting stuck in to save the day. All the time trying to repress his leading man, a wiry, pretentious Thesp – James Clifford's cat-tearing Bottom. As well as Hermia, Kristy Bruce gives us a nicely nervous Starveling, Moonshine in the play.

Ella Garland makes a nice adolescent Puck, especially good when bewitching the hempen homespuns, and in her final speech.

The verse-speaking is very patchy, with syllables maddeningly added or subtracted – the text itself is severely pruned to fit into two hours, interval included. Nicola Dalziel's Titania perhaps the most successful with the poetry – clear and stylish.

James Tobias's production has many strong moments – the fights especially, and of course Pyramus and Thisbe, much enjoyed by the rather sparse Civic audience. But it lacks a coherent style to carry it through, and seems a little lost on this wide stage – it would appear that most of their work is done in much more intimate venues.

The bare cast list gives no information at all about the company, or these nine actors. So we know nothing about where these voices were trained, or whether their work embraces Casualty as well as the classics, summer seasons as well as Shakespeare.

Nor does it mention the most intriguing aspect of this production. It is one of a pair – there exists also a darker, nightmare version, set a few years later during the 14-18 War, “where, in the dead of night, the dark, dangerous woods become the playground to the mourning spirits of those who have fallen before their time...” It would be good to have the chance to compare and contrast.

this piece first appeared on The Public Reviews

THINGS TO COME - A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

Following their 5 star-rated, sell out production of Measure for Measure, Off West End-nominated Immersion Theatre are kicking off their 2014 season by embarking on their first tour with their incredibly exciting take on one of Shakespeare's most iconic works, "A Midsummer Night's Dream".

A Midsummer Night's Dream is of of Shakespeare's most wonderful comedies. What happens, however, if all preconceptions are forgotten? What if the text is taken at its word and the situations we have grown so familiar with are played for what they really are rather than for comic effect?

Immersion Theatre are incredibly excited to be able to provide audiences with the opportunity to choose what world it is they want to experience, the dream or the nightmare, the charm or the horror...

The Dream: Set in Great Britain just before the start of the Great War, this charming adaptation sees these fantastical characters transported to a time of unparalleled peace and prosperity. Four young lovers, a band of hapless actors, and a magical realm populated by enchanting spirits set on causing mischief and mayhem at every turn culminate in an evening of beauty and hilarity.

The Nightmare: Set in Great Britain at the height of the first world war, this haunting adaptation sees the story transported to an unforgettable era in which the greatest war of modern times threatens to tear love apart and where, in the dead of night, the dark, dangerous woods become the playground to the mourning spirits of those who have fallen before their time...

Immersion Theatre gives you the opportunity to choose whether you would like to see a beautiful and highly engaging interpretation of this iconic piece, a sinister and chilling adaptation, or both. Both versions of the show will have the same cast with each actor playing the same role. If you think you know this story, think again. Will you dream with the fairies or end up in a nightmare? The choice is yours...

As far as I can tell, the choice has been made – Chelmsford will get the sunny, lighter Dream [just as Brockley only got the Nightmare]. Both trailers are here for comparison, though.


These productions are directed by Immersion Theatre's Artistic Director, James Tobias, the director behind Immersion's 5 star-rated Taming of the Shrew, Measure for Measure and award-nominated Julius Caesar.

Chelmsford City Theatres
Civic
Wednesday, 12 March 2014 - 7:45pm
Tickets: £14.00  Conc: £12.00
Registered unemployed and full-time (FE/HE) students: £7.00

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

Shakespeare's Globe

28.05.13

A first look at Dominic Dromgoole's Dream.

Plenty of rough magic, and a heavy hint of Hern the Hunter in Jonathan Fensom's design.

Some magical performances, too, including the excellent Michelle Terry – in Love's Labours here in 2011 – as Titania, beautifully spoken, and equally affecting mourning the loss of her votress and wooing her "monster". Less convincing vocally was her Oberon – John Light – though he does look the part as a Satyr. Sarah MacRae is a bright, bold Helena, though generally the lovers take too long about their antics.

Two actors seem particularly to embody the authentic Shakespearean essence of their roles: Matthew Tennyson as a fey, teenage Puck, and Pearce Quigley as a dry, droll Bottom, clowning, ad-libbing, continuously hilarious despite the visual and vocal handicap of the ass's head.

The groundlings were helpless with laughter at the Mechanicals' thespian efforts – on a poky, rickety pageant cart, complete with wonky pillars echoing those on the stage, they are everyone's amdram nightmare. Good to see Snug's carpentry skills put to use, as he noisily repairs the stage mid-tragedy – Edward Peel playing Eric Morecambe to Quigley's Shirley Bassey ...