A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

Chichester Festival Theatre

★★★½

“when the sweaty, chaotic fairy world takes over, it gives the play a suitably messy sense of freedom and desire”

There is something faintly quaint about setting A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 1994 Sussex. It is recent enough to feel familiar, but distant enough now for some of the cultural references to have become period detail. They don’t always hang together. Justin Audibert and Hannah Joss’s production brings Shakespeare’s lovers to the cathedral city of Chichester and the South Downs. Here, Tory MP Theseus is cracking down on illegal raves in the run-up to his wedding, while Oberon and Titania are preparing their own rather more illicit party. The conceit can feel a little out of place and out of time, but there are plenty of things that work.

The strongest is the fairy world. David Sturzaker’s Oberon and Eve Ponsonby’s Titania are sweaty, drug-addled and thoroughly unkempt, with their fairy followers looking as though they have been dancing on the Downs for several days and nights. Oberon’s grubby Rolling Stones T-shirt and Titania’s shimmering silvery outfit, complete with impressively unwashed, matted hair, create exactly the right contrast. Shane David-Joseph’s Puck, in shiny leisurewear and chomping on a cigar, is equally at home in this world. Oberon’s ritual with the drugs used for the love potions is particularly effective, while he directs the action from his DJ booth and Puck gets the party going.

The rave world is full of neon, fluffy cushions, vivid colours and smiley faces, with the dancers bringing plenty of energy to the production. The grass-covered thrust stage is backed by a large, pyramid-shaped timber structure, with Elliot Griggs’s neon-centric lighting adding plenty of colour and energy. Cubed spaces representing the MP’s office, the wedding venue and Titania’s neon-lit boudoir move in and out of the timber structure. Grounding the adaptation geographically as well as politically are references to places around Chichester, while the South Downs make a suitably magical setting for the lovers to escape into. The real landscape has plenty of enchantment of its own, but Joanna Scotcher’s set doesn’t quite capture it. It’s an interesting conceit, but the result feels a little lacklustre, perhaps relying rather more than it should on a local audience to supply some of the associations and atmosphere that the landscape itself might have provided.

The 1994 setting does provide some political mischief. Tom Kanji’s buttoned-up Tory MP Theseus and Celeste Dodwell’s frozen, lacquered-hair fiancée Hippolyta look every inch the respectable political couple, but behind closed doors they can barely keep their hands off each other. Theseus’s office is dominated by a huge photograph of Margaret Thatcher, which the more liberally minded Lysanda happily defaces. It is a neat reminder of the political world this production is playing with, from the Tory sleaze scandals of the period to the crackdown on illegal raves, which reflects the introduction of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act that same year.

The gender changes among the lovers add an interesting dimension, hinting at social changes that were still to come. Angela Saint’Albano’s Hermia and Ellie Larkin’s Lysanda have a relationship that feels genuinely affectionate, making their eventual falling-out more painful, while Freya Parks’ Helena gets plenty to play with as the spurned lover in the first half. Kieran Taylor-Ford’s Demetrius is a little less distinctive alongside the three women, but once the magic starts to scramble their affections, Saint’Albano gets some great comic frustration when both Lysanda and Demetrius suddenly turn against her.

The mechanicals are members of the Conservative Party rehearsing a play to impress their local MP, with Bottom working in the local video shop and keen to bring his screen heroes into his performance. There are some good dynamics among them too, particularly Kieran Walker’s put-upon Flute and Anna Soden’s Robyn Starveling, who is clearly rather enamoured of Bottom. The standout performance comes from Munya Chawawa as Bottom, who gives him an infectious combination of self-importance and sheer silliness, with terrific physical comedy and a particularly charming hiccupping ‘hee-haw’ after his transformation.

The production moves at a good pace, shifting between the lovers, mechanicals and fairy world without letting any one strand dominate. The 1994 setting may not always convince, but when the sweaty, chaotic fairy world takes over, it gives the play a suitably messy sense of freedom and desire. And I suspect Bottom’s pronunciation of ‘prologue’ will stay with me for a long time.