‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’,

Titchfield Festival Theatre,

The Great Barn, Titchfield.

IT’S good to see a director willing to try out fresh ideas, and Paul King’s opening production for TFT’s Shakespeare summer season was crammed with good things, greatly assisted by a company simply bursting with energy and commitment.

Rose Malyon’s Hermia opened the show as a bored schoolgirl, falling asleep with script in hand before being dragged into the exhausting action along with fellow lovers, Stephen Ward’s hirsute Lysander, Josh Coates’s romantic Demetrius, and Lou Mannell’s wonderful ‘painted maypole’ Helena.

As Oberon, Russell Churcher created more of a pantomime villain than a fairy king, while his sidekick Puck (Dan Fox in cockney geezer mode), went about his midnight mischief with great charm. Holly Robertson’s elegant Titania headed up a great team of punky fairies, and Abi Linnartz, as Mrs. Bottom, had the best of the laughs in the tragi-comedy presented by ‘The Athens Festival Theatre’ in the final wedding scene”.

Ed Howson.