A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Coram's Fields Review

I turned up at the leafy (and just a little muddy) glade in Central London last night in a less than positive frame of mind.

I was tired, stressed about work, my allergies were playing up, I had forgotten to pack any food and what's more I REALLY needed to go to the Gents.

Fortunately there was a Gents by the entrance.

As I seated myself on one of the wooden park benches placed as seating around the staging area, I noticed that a lady behind me was scratching loudly on a notepad with a pencil... I also noticed that the glade was starting to swarm with gnats.

I popped an anti-histamine which got stuck in my throat, releasing foul flavours and sensations into the whole of my mouth and respiratory tract. 

The play was going to have to be pretty damn good if it was going to make me smile.. and fortunately it was..

The theme was a strange mixture which is hard to describe...  Puck and the fairies were dressed like crasher kids while Lysander and Demetrius were dressed like members of the The Beatles (circa the early days when The Fab Four still wore sharp suits and winklepickers) and the hapless workmen were dressed according to their professions. It was a bit all-over-the-place but I think that was the idea... after all, Midsummer is a summer romp and the perfect opportunity for a creativity explosion.

...and that's exactly what this production was: a huge fat exploding multi-coloured mud pie of creativity.

Right from the start, various characters would periodically and without warning launch themselves into the singing of Beatles songs, often combining four or five Beatles songs or adapting them to humorous effect (Oooh, Bottom was a weaver in the market place!).

Most of the play was completely and gloriously over-acted but Principal Theatre's Nick Bottom was an over-acting tour de force.  It was almost as though he was playing Nick Bottom, as played by Nick Bottom.. thereby creating a kind-of meta-Bottom experience.

My gold medal for most outstanding performance, however, must be jointly awarded to Hermia and Helena who not only stabilized the ship by giving well-rounded and three-dimensional performances but brought refreshing interpretations to their roles .

Oh, sorry, I don't know the actors' names because I was too stingy to buy  a programme - I don't have that much money and I'd rather spend what I do have on more tickets than programmes, okay!

Best thing about the play?

The fact that it felt like it had been written yesterday.  This is how, I think, Shakespeare should feel. Fresh and vibrant...

Worst thing about the play?

The gnats!!

Other things worthy of note.

I love the way that The Principal Theatre Company exploited the ghost-link between the Athenian royal couple (Theseus & Hippolyta) and the Fairyland royal couple (Oberon & Titania) by actually making the fairy couple a pair of strange and dreamlike alter-egos of the Athenian couple, with the transformation brought about by the will of Puck and her fairies (thus making Puck the puppet master of the play - how cool is that?).

I guess that some purists might have found the constant singing of Fab Four hits as well as the many comedy additions to the play's text irritating... but not me, it was what it was designed to be... an over the top, Punch and Judy-style romp!

A Midsummer Night's Dream at Coram's Fields is running until 4/8/2012