In leafy North Oxford, Wolfson College sports field has transformed into a village fete – complete with marquee, picnic tables and outdoor games (cornhole in particular demand on opening night). The English summer vibe rolls on into the production – picnic baskets, cricket whites, gins in tins, Morris-dancing-adjacent accessories. The only thing missing is a maypole (poor Helena).
Everyone plays several parts; lots play several instruments. A mischievous fairy with a magic flower ensures the course of true love never runs smooth. There’s a play within a play. Someone turns into a donkey. Through it all, the cast is boundlessly dynamic, consistently hilarious, and completely distinct and committed in their multiple roles. I keep starting to single one out for praise but then I remember how great the others were.
It’s the same tent that last summer hosted As You Like It and Treasure Island in Wycliffe Hall, but feels much bigger in the expanse of the sports field, which the cast make great use of. When Lydia-May Cooney’s Puck dashes off to put a girdle about the earth in forty minutes she does laps of the cricket ground – circling the performance in the marquee - on a very Oxford rickety bike covered in flowers. I don’t think she stopped apart from when she was rushing back on stage as Titania, which gives you an idea of the energy levels sustained throughout.
As an Extremely English person (my dad owns a tearoom) I’m generally horrified by requests for audience participation, but I think I actually enjoyed the little singalong, and my ten-year-old son was thrilled to be pulled into a dance number.
Forget Glastonbury, Wimbledon and the hosepipe ban - there are plenty of people in Oxford who feel summer hasn’t started until they’ve seen some Shakespeare in the open air. I found out in the interval that I was sat next to one, and on the way home after this production (and Wild Goose’s wonderful Twelfth Night at Oxford Castle last year), I think I might be one myself.