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

I hope what I've seen so far of the 2026 summer season at Shakespeare's Globe isn't a sign of things to come, as it could spell the beginning of the end of my relationship with one of my favourite venues: After avoiding it for years due to the original management's insistence on original practices sounding a bit theme parky, once I started going I loved the genuine exploration of how the space helps actors play with the text, as well as it becoming one of the few companies where you could count on catching the odd Shakespearean rarity. The latter has been stymied to the point of non-existence recently by economic demands, and the venue has depended a lot on the four most popular comedies - AMND, As You Like It, Much Ado and Twelfth Night.

Theatre review: Our Generation

While we don't currently have the mass cancellations we were seeing at the height of Omicron, some shows are still being more affected by Covid than others: The performance of Our Generation I'd originally booked for last month got cancelled - by this point it had become apparent it was nearly four hours long, so to be honest I didn't mind the opportunity to reschedule from a Tuesday night to a weekend - and tonight's almost went the same way, as two cast members had had positive test results and the Dorfman doesn't carry understudies. Fortunately two of their castmates were able to read in all their roles as well as playing their own, so Sarita Gabony covered Anna Burnett's part and Stephanie Street read in Debbie Chazen's tonight. And I'm glad they did, as despite its epic length it would have been a shame to miss Alecky Blythe's epic of five years in the lives of teenagers, her most significant and affecting work since London Road.