A Midsummer Night's Dream

Anyone who doubts that Shakespeare can be exciting, enjoyable, and riotously, painfully funny should beg, borrow or steal (for you cannot currently buy) tickets to see the Globe’s touring production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. It was a fantastic, frothy performance that tapped into the rich comedy of Shakespeare in a highly unusual way.

The lovers chided, Oberon presided and Puck ran amok between the sheer walls of Bodleian's quadrangle. These splendid surroundings provide a great view upwards, and a direct route for the potential downpour. Standard rain gear is recommended, Midsummer in Oxford being rather more changeable than Athens. It's an intimate setting, the audience very close to the small stage on steeply racked seating, and the cast take full advantage of this. Whether it’s Puck flinging herself (literally) at the most embarrassed man in the front row or Bottom dragooning a love interest, or even just casual comedic asides, you never feel removed from the action. It swings its suspender-clad legs in your face.

Did I mention the aesthetic was vaguely 1920’s? The roaring twenties ethos infused the performance via aforementioned suspenders, cricket sweaters and happy jazz. (Incidentally, there’s plenty of shirtless Demetrius and Lysander to distribute the sexy equitably). Occasionally the lovers veered toward the Jeeves and Wooster end of the spectrum, but the rude mechanicals were uproarious, an anarchic pastiche of every amdram group ever.

This was a light hearted production that occasionally felt a little light-headed, happy to hit character notes broadly and to let dramatic tension take second place to energetic humour. As one of us said: “It's all there within the text, but what's the point of thrusting your crotch into the air whenever the slightest opportunity presents?” Well, perhaps because it was done with such style.

This production was undeniably slick. The rude mechanicals appeared spontaneously during apron-swapping Charleston swing numbers. The scene-changing in general was effortless, the timing perfect, the acting effortlessly competent. The cast’s musical talents (Oberon a mean banjo-player; who knew?) added perfectly to the tone of light risqué comedy. Even the slightly bland faeries couldn’t detract from Snout’s magnificently apologetic lion, or Puck’s gleeful mischief.

So don’t let the nitpicking negativity of prudes or purists put you off. Your American friends will like this play. Your children will like this play. You will like this play. It was funny and fun - possibly the funniest production of Shakespeare one reviewer had ever seen. And if, in the end, it was more amusing than incisive, more enjoyable than intellectual… well, is literary analysis really what you want on a Midsummer Night?

If you’re sick of seeing Shakespeare cheerlessly dissected by achingly serious productions which parade the stuffed corpse of Drama onstage as an alternative to entertaining, this is the production for you. There is no doubt you are in the hands of professionals and you can lie back and think of Athens.

Alwyn Collinson, Patrick Vale and Jenny Pawsey (Unverified), 28/07/10

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