A Midsummer Night's Dream

I have a great soft spot for A Midsummer Night's Dream, my wife and I got together over a one year rehearsal process for a production in Lincoln. I also greatly enjoy unstrung puppets having worked one as "Sinbad" in Arabian Nights at Peterborough. Add to that my huge respect for Tom Morris and my love of Handspring Puppet's work with War Horse and you can imagine that I was really excited about this show.

I have to say, by the interval, however, I felt a little deflated. By using the puppets both in the real and fantasy worlds, but not consistently in either, I was left wondering what purpose they served in the storytelling. Worse, I felt that the actors were so busy that they sometimes seemed less than committed to the words.

I guess in my mind's eye, I had expected that the puppets would represent the fantasy world and that real people would represent Athens, instead we had a mix, something that made the opening scene unduly static and which, for me, caused some issues detecting the doubling of actors. As far as I am concerned Puck worked well the way that they played it but Bottom's Ass was a one-joke effect, brilliant in its impact but somewhat difficult to sustain.

Without doubt, Act II picked up and there were some truly magical moments, but overall, the production seemed to lack focus and brought nothing new to the script, indeed, the puppets, particularly when human, seemed to get in the way and detach us from the story, they just lacked life - it's an eye-line thing - and were a bit small from the back of the stage.

At the end, after a somewhat protracted play-within-a-play some of the potential magic appeared, though I'm not sure we needed to see the lovers love, and I felt the production more rounded ... but why rob us of Puck's final speech?

"If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended, That you have but slumber'd here, While these visions did appear."

More slightly bemused than offended, this still makes for a good night out - I'll be interested to see it later in the run when it has, perhaps, bedded down a bit more