Well met by moonlight… A Midsummer Night’s Dream, St John’s College Gardens, Cambridge Shakespeare Festival

The cast and director, with apologies for nicking this from Rob Goll's Twitter!

"I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was."

This play is all about transformation and driving into the unknown, finding a parking space and walking through St John’s ornate gates into their secluded gardens, the process began before we even sat down. There were families with picnics, strawberries and champagne, a proper varsity audience sat on the lawn, groundlings all, with everything all apart with the scenery. As dusk progressed the gardens changed shape, stage lighting forcing shadows ever deeper against the hedges and trees becoming forests… as Bottom became an ass.

This was my first time live with A Midsummer Night’s Dream, sure I’ve seen the 1909 silent version with Delores Costello, Drew Barrymore’s grandmother, and the Trevor Nunn RSC televised version with Helen and Diana… but nothing prepared me for this complex comedy to be so warm and welcoming. Directed by Matthew Parker this is truly delicious theatre with each and every player literally running themselves into the ground in service of the story; all encouraged to become expanded versions of themselves as combinations of Athenian legends, sprites, fairies and donkeys. Tonight, they made their own myths and were absolute legends.

Parker is always such a spatially aware director and he used the setting perfectly as the players mostly ran from and onto the stage, round the gardens out of sight and round the corner to re-emerge in different character. Most wore gym shoes or pumps as both Matthew and esteemed Artistic Director Dr David Crilly would say (Manchester and Liverpool working so well together), which served this pacey parkour perfectly, creating an impression of vast space around the performance area, turning the gardens to forest, helping the present tumble into the past, as the audience melted into myth drawn in by both the rhythms of words and voices.

The stage is set, the house was full and the strawberries and champagne in flow.

I can see why this play is so pleasingly regarded as its complexities are perfectly balanced and there are three main strands that we can see increasingly tangle only to surely straighten as the narrative concludes. For all its confusion and chaos, it is a very well-balanced narrative that leaves customers and characters satisfied but only after we all put in the hard yards.

Events start off in ancient Athens a place few Englishmen had visited in the 1590s but which lived in the imaginations of the play-going literati. Theseus, the Duke of Athens (Edmund Fargher) is preparing for his marriage, complete with four-day festival, to Hippolyta (Alex Andlau) when the nobleman Egeus (Rob Goll, who’s Bottom we’ll see a lot of) who is trying to arrange a marriage for his daughter, Hermia (Tessa Brockis). The contenders are Demetrius (George Barnden), father’s preference and young Lysander whom daughter loves.

Lysander is usually played by Aneurin Pritchard who injured himself a short while before tonight’s performance to be replaced by associate director David Rowan who, text in hand, performed a miracle of his own that somehow felt part of the Dream… there’s magic afoot with this event.

Under threat of death if she refuses to marry Demetrius, Hermia and Lysander plan their escape but not before telling Helena (Nadia Dawber) of their plan and she, being in love with Demetrius, tells him, hoping to shift his opinion. But no, Demetrius follows on after the couple and poor Helena follows him.

In the woods there is an argument between the fairy king, Oberon (Mr Fargher, again) and his queen Titania (Ms Andlau, also again) who are arguing over custardy of her Indian changeling causing her husband to plan a revenge. He calls on his "shrewd and knavish sprite", Puck (Amy Blanchard) to help him concoct a magical juice derived from a flower called "love-in-idleness", which applied to the eyelids of a sleeping person, makes them, upon waking, fall in love with the first living thing they see. Oh, what could possibly go wrong with that plan…

Meanwhile a third strand arrives in the form of an Athenian acting troop, amateurs who are in the forest to plan and rehearse a play for the wedding. They are played again by the aforementioned crew all of whom relish the opportunity to create additional characters and who are quickly submerged as the awkward Flute (David Rowan, text still in hand, a real trooper), the shy Starveling (Mr Barnden), the energetic Snout (Ms Brockis), the oddly gaited Snug (Nadia Dawber, straight from the Ministry of Silly Walks) and the oafish Bottom (Mr Goll) who is by nature exactly what his name suggests. They are marshalled by the endlessly impatient Quince (Meg MacMillan) who just wants to put on a good show for Theseus of the play what he wrote: The Most Lamentable Comedy and Most Cruel Death of Pyramus and Thisbe.

Now then, to cut a long story short, the potion gets applied to the right person and then the wrong person, the right person wakes up and falls in love with the wrong Donkey (yes) whilst the wrong person falls for another wrong person who is already in love with another wrong person anyway. As love-sick flies are we to the Gods or at least the Fairies…

It’s a riot and as my daughter pointed out whole families were laughing including the children which is always a mark of Shakespeare done well. It would be unfair to pick out individual cast members - every one of them excels! - but you have to admire Amy Blanchard’s Puck, whose movement is exceptional, jumping on Oberon’s back and in perpetual motion, laughing at the confusion caused. Needless to say, Mr Goll’s Bottom is indeed impressive, surely one of the funniest parts in Shakespeare (sorry, I'll stop...), especially when played the Yorkshire way, whilst Nadia Dawber get’s laughs for her physicality as well as her seemingly hopeless devotion to the indifferent Demetrius.

The multi-tasking is seeminlgy effortless, they all dance and sing, whilst the team work is so strong as we've come to expect from Mr Parker; all play hard but supportively and with joy! Thank you all for entertaining us!

Take a bow. Apologies for my iPhone.

IThankYou verdict: **** This play hits all the right notes and in the designated order, fast and furious fantasy and undoubtedly one of Bill’s best. But this is a truly immersive experience, from a time before such notions were invented, Parker’s Band cover all of the ground, emotionally, contextually and physically… there’s not a nuance unturned and you will respond cerebrally and viscerally. It’s mood-altering and not just a legal high but one that should be made compulsory!

The play continues up until 27^th August and I would urge you all to go sit with picnic, turn off your phones, relax and float downstream with this wonderful Dream.

You can book direct from the Cambridge Shakespeare Festival site and you won’t regret it.