Midsummer Night’s Dream (Albery)

Dawn French‘s Bottom is a revelation. And if you find that opening line the least bit amusing, you will relish the latest rendition of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Director Matthew Francis cranks up the comedy in this production, which rocks and rollicks, thanks in no small part to Miss French, a consummate comedienne and, so we can now say, an impressive Shakespearean player.

Francis sets his Dream on the homefront during the Second World War. Hippolyta and Theseus (Michael Siberry) are exiled European royalty hiding out in a grey-washed English country house. With the bombs crashing in the distance, the troupe’s escape to the fairies and fantasies of Lez Brotherston‘s enchanting wooded glen provide a symbolic escape from wartime atrocities. The setting also allows for some ingenuous casting of the Mechanicals. Here, all but one (Flute, of course, who later “performs” as the cross-dressing Thisbe) are played by housewives forced to join the workforce as well as the Ladies’ Amateur Dramatics Society.

French, caking on the thick West Country accent, is a bumbling delight who sets the audience to giggling by her very presence as “Mrs” Bottom. Once assified under Puck’s spell, Bottom’s hilarity is amplified, especially with the added in-jokes and downright raunchy sexual innuendos that arise (ahem) given her gender. The image of her being ravaged by the fairy queen Titania (a husky Jemma Redgrave) is wonderfully ludicrous, and the final scene of the Thisbe/Pyramus play-within-a-play is nothing short of uproarious – the audience’s laughter here drowns out many of the actors’ lines.

But though Bottom’s time on stage is sadly brief, there’s plenty to spellbind elsewhere. The ensemble suffers from not a single weak link. Following French’s lead, the rest of the Mechanicals (Paul Rider, Joanna Scanlan and Debbie Chazen), guided by the befuddled and saucer-eyed “Mrs” Quince (Selina Cadell), adeptly milk the text for laughs. The lovers, too, are painfully earnest and passionate; particularly watchable are Will Keen‘s near-apoplectic Lysander and Gillian Kearney‘s Hermia. And Lee Ingleby scampers about admirably as the mischievous fairy Puck.

It’s surely no accident, either, that, with the involvement of Adventures in Motion Pictures producer Katherine Dore, the choreography is top notch. Etta Murfitt proves her worth with the orchestration of scenes such as the clawing catfight between Hermia and Helena and the debacle of the amateur entertainment and its chinked wall.

This lewd and lusty Dream may not be the one for introducing the kiddies to the delights of Shakespeare, but the fresh take, combined with French and a high profile West End season, will doubtless draw other new audiences to the bard. No bad thing at all.

Terri Paddock