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Review: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, RSC Stratford
Friday 5th August 2011, 8:06AM BST.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Royal Shakespeare Theatre
Stratford
By Peter Rhodes
Nancy Meckler’s brisk, energetic production is long on laughs and short on frills.
It has the feel of a low-budget, drama-college show with the fairies and Athenians seemingly costumed from either the dressing-up box or the Oxfam shop.
But if they’ve saved money on the props, they have certainly invested a lot of time in getting the action and the speaking right.
I can’t think when I have heard Shakespeare’s lines delivered so clearly with the rhythm of the poetry so accented.
From a young and hugely committed cast, two great comedy performances stand out.
Lucy Briggs-Owen in her debut season with the RSC, is a Helena who is not only madly in love but probably mad, too, descending into a deranged, hysterical punch-up in the forest with Hermia (Matti Houghton).
But as so often in the Dream it’s poor, excitable, donkey-headed Bottom the Weaver, played here by Marc Wootton, who steals the show. It is a magical and memorable performance.
Only a few days ago, Jane Horrocks, star of Absolutely Fabulous and the Tesco ads, declared: “I think for an awful lot of folk, Shakespeare is very inaccessible still.”
Get yourself down to Stratford, Jane, and see a thousand people a night roaring with laughter at this hilarious production.
It runs until November 5.
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