A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Shakespeare’s Globe – review

This folky, jokey, crowd-pleasing new Midsummer Night’s Dream from director Emily Lim opens with members of the audience being invited on stage to learn a dance routine and continues in this vein in a production that, in true Globe tradition, makes a virtue of participation.

A prime example comes when Puck (Michael Grady-Hall) is preparing to drop his love potion into the eyes of the sleeping Lysander (Mel Lowe) and accidentally gets some in his own, meaning he falls for an unsuspecting member of the audience (on press night, a game gentleman named Steve). This becomes a running joke, culminating in said audience member joining him during the climactic wedding ceremony.

It’s just one of a number of ingenious little twists that make this a genuinely joyous, energetic and celebratory interpretation. There’s even a bit of Jacob Collier-style action as Grady-Hall’s jester-esque Puck conducts the audience to sing in harmony to transform the stage into the flower-filled forest (colourfully evoked by designer Aldo Vázquez and costume concept designer Fly Davis). Later, the moon and stars are conjured very literally during the final moments, with the audience invited to dangle silver-coloured mobiles from the gallery.

Given Lim’s interest in community-centred work, she’s an apt choice for a venue where the audience is so inherently involved. Musicians Sally Simpson and Piotr Jordan play fiddles in the pit during pre-show and then move up to the balcony to join the folk band, playing original compositions from Globe associate Jim Fortune (including a singalong finale jig). From the off, there’s a kick-off-your-shoes-and-join-the-party kind of vibe, and it’s about as far from the wintry interpretation that recently played in the adjoining Sam Wanamaker Playhouse as you could imagine.

There’s an intriguingly androgynous edge to the cast, notably Lowe’s Lysander (one of a quartet of pastel-clad lovers, alongside Sophie Cox, Romaya Weaver and Gavi Singh Chera) and Enyi Okoronkwo’s dress-wearing Oberon. Meanwhile, Audrey Brisson‘s Titania goes all earth mother, cuddling her adopted baby with pointed intent as the fairies fuss around her. And the Mechanicals become riotous am-dram group “The Pap Pap Players”, led by Victoria Moseley’s director Quince (who invites us to become company members) and Adrian Richards’ decidedly stagey Bottom (he wears a Hamilton t-shirt, and his silvery donkey guise wouldn’t look out of place at the Met gala).

Dream is never the easiest to follow plot-wise, and the production is not the most lucid you’ll see from a storytelling perspective; it feels the narrative is sublimated to the showmanship, the darker and more poetic aspects of the play drowned out in a (literal) sea of bubbles. But this is forgivable in a version that feels unapologetically fun, escapist and, I daresay, well-judged for the current times.