Theatre review: A Midsummer Night's Dream (Shakespeare's Globe)

The third and last of this year's major London Midsummer Night's Dreams comes courtesy of Sean Holmes in his new position as an associate at the Globe. In a crowded field the production needs to do a lot to stand out: While there's a couple of interesting little twists on the familiar story this isn't a particularly high-concept Dream; instead everyone's energies have been thrown into mining every possible moment of comedy, with great success. Jean Chan's Athens is more South American than Southern European, the design evoking a pastel-coloured Rio Carnival, although to start with this is for appearances only - Duke Theseus (Peter Bourke) is holding festivities for his upcoming marriage to Hippolyta (Victoria Elliott) but the latter has no choice in the matter of marrying a much older man, and is far from thrilled with it - this is the second Dream this summer to have the Amazon Queen arrive on stage in a box, although it's played slightly more for laughs here.

But the royal wedding is largely a backdrop, as a group of workmen rehearse a play they hope to put on for the Duke, and four young lovers flee to the forest to escape Hermia's (Faith Omole) tyrannical father; all of the above having a spanner put into the works by the forest's resident mischievous fairies.

Although rarely the first thing that comes to mind about the play, the lovers can often be the funniest element; and while their best scenes come in the second half this is a particularly strong quartet who make their mark right from the start, largely by ruthlessly taking the piss out of the florid way their loved-up characters speak. Ekow Quartey's Lysander soon makes himself distinctive with a tendency to break into oversexed R'n'B standards at the slightest provocation (as well as being very attached to his lilo,) while there's a take on the second couple I don't think I've ever seen before: It's fair to say that Helena is at the best of times A BIT INTENSE, and Amanda Wilkin dials this up to eleven; as a result Ciaran O'Brien's Demetrius isn't the usual asshole ex being needlessly cruel, it's just that he's absolutely terrified of her.

Over with the rude mechanicals Nadine Higgin's rapping Quince is the rare kind who can, just every so often, exert a tiny bit of authority over Bottom, as well as keeping some control over one of the production's major gimmicks, of casting a different audience member out of the groundlings every night to read in the role of Starveling - this is generally a production that ramps up the venue's usual audience participation even higher, mostly in the form of singalong opportunities. We've been well-served for impressive Bottoms this year and Jocelyn Jee Esien's has to take the title of the most hyperactive, giving the impression that the character's barely in control of his own actions and comedy accents. The gag equating a certain stereotype of a French accent with a donkey's brays is, I think, a new one on me, while there's always some anticipation to see how a production will deal with the ass' head, and having Bottom transformed into a piñata is a satisfying tie-in to the carnival theme. I was also pleased to see Holmes deal pretty cursorily with the scene of Bottom being tended to by the fairies, which I find nine times out of ten utterly slows the energy down.

The other major casting gimmick is to have the role of Puck shared out between the whole cast, something I've seen done before with Ariel but not in this play. Although, unlike those Tempests where Ariel's multiple actors are the spirit dividing himself, here it becomes apparent the multiple Pucks are indeed separate entities ("puck" being used here in the original meaning as a generic term like "fairy" or "sprite," rather than the character's actual name, which is of course Robin Goodfellow.) So Bourke's Oberon is only angry with one incarnation of Puck for messing up the love potion, and the epilog(you) sees the multiple versions call back to an earlier gag involving drugged blowdarts.

Holmes opened the show with the currently-ubiquitous take of emphasising the violence behind Hippolyta's arrival in Athens, and while it looks like that darkness will never be dealt with in an otherwise very sunny production, there is a last-minute, understated twist to resolve that story. As with the Open Air Theatre, the Globe is somewhere that A Midsummer Night's Dream will inevitably revisit more often than most Shakespeare plays as it's such a natural home for it. The venue always makes an effort to put a distinctive spin on the play and this is more successful than most - the Rio Carnival theme making its mark without needlessly ovewhelming the production. More importantly, the smaller character and story choices made along the way are for the most part successful and interesting, and result in a lot of laughs.

A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare is booking in repertory until the 13th of October at Shakespeare's Globe.

Running time: 2 hours 45 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Tristram Kenton.