A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Published Thursday 14 February 2008 at 15:00 by Victor Hallett

Tim Baker’s beautiful, magical and funny production is full of good performances and exceptional movement but it’s the leaves that will be remembered. At first a few, then more and finally a torrent, falling to transform Athens into the fairy wood.

Their thickness frees the two female lovers from the restraints of stiletto heels, setting loose their wilder natures. During the glorious quarrel scene, Louise Collins’ feisty Hermia delivers Dyfed Potter’s puzzled Lysander a back-handed blow that has the audience gasping. With Eleanor Howell’s statuesque Helena and Alex Parry’s glowering Demetrius playing their full part, this is physical and verbal knockabout which is almost as funny as Pyramus and Thisbe.

That’s in the safely unsafe hands of an eagerly incompetent bunch of mechanicals, led by Simon Armstrong’s deliciously querulous Peter Quince. I particularly enjoyed Julian Lewis Jones’ macho Flute, playing Thisbe like a refugee from Monty Python.

Phylip Harries’ cocky South Walian Bottom is particularly effective in his transformed state, with Siwan Morris relishing her outrageously sexy Titania.

The whited-up fairies are the production’s other memorable creations. Climbing the set, diving into the leaves, freezing in tableau, these are fairies who would happily wreak havoc - particularly Simon Watt’s Puck, a real mischief-maker. When Bradley Freegard’s dignified, imperious Oberon punishes him with invisible blows, Watts does some terrific falling and twisting among those memorable leaves.

This clearly spoken, lovely looking production balances all the play’s threads, giving them equal weight in a richly enjoyable piece of pure theatre.