Jilly Bond - Director
Adrian Lillie - Costume Designer
Nick Lloyd Webber / Simon Davis - Composers
Nick Green / Alicia Farrow - Set Design

Charlotte Baltrop-Gallet - Snug/Second Fairy/Mustardseed
Ian Cairns - Quince/Egeus
David Chittenden - Oberon/Theseus
Becci Gemmell - Puck
Andrew Hodges - Bottom/Demetrius
Alice Keenan - Hermia
Richard Keightley - Lysander
Joanna Morse Palmer - Flute/First Fairy/Cobweb
Sarah Jane Wolverson - Helena/Hippolyta
Kirsty Yates - Hippolyta/Titania

The course of true love never did run smooth," Lysander famously proclaims in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. And never have those words been underlined more clearly than in Jilly Bond's new production for the Oxford Shakespeare Company. Take Helena (Sarah Jane Wolverson), for instance. Quick of both temper and fist, her fight with Hermia (Alice Keenan) quickly degenerates into a truly vicious brawl. Lysander (Richard Keightley) and Demetrius (Andrew Hodges) prove none too skilful at dealing with such explosive body language. You actually begin to think that it's a good thing there has been so much rain lately: the Wadham lawn must be just a little bit softer to land on when actors end up crashing to the ground in this highly physical production.

Aloof from the brawling are Theseus, Duke of Athens, and Oberon, King of the Fairies (both played by David Chittenden). Theseus comes over as a rather pompous old-school army officer, while Oberon has a way of looking down his nose with sneering disdain - not that this seems to worry fairies Mustardseed and Cobweb. They have much climbing up and down Nick Green and Alicia Farrow's scaffolding-pole set to achieve, providing Charlotte Baltrop-Gallet and Joanna Morse Palmer with eagerly seized opportunities to develop a double act. One fairy develops her acrobatic skills with ease, while the other often lands on her bottom in an ungainly heap. Of course, in these politically correct days it would be quite wrong to reveal which fairy is the high achiever. There is also a high-octane performance from Becci Gemmell as a macho, black-clad Puck.

Talking of Bottom, Andrew Hodges (who doubles as Demetrius) gives a lively, not to say lip-smacking account of the role: I could have sworn that he changed 'masters' into 'ladies' in the line "Masters, spread yourselves". But no doubt I was mistaken. Unsurprisingly, this Bottom is the despair of rather prissy director Quince (Ian Cairns) as he prepares the play-within-a-play Pyramus and Thisbe for its distinguished audience. But perhaps the most interesting thing about this Dream is the way director Bond treats the dialogue. It's very much spoken in a modern idiom, and delivered with exemplary clarity. No opportunity is lost to point up laughs, with the humour being given extra sharpness by the skilful addition of sarcasm. It's perhaps a pity that OSC didn't go the whole hog, and match modern dialogue with modern dress - the costumes are in a veritable mishmash of styles. But that's a minor criticism of a production that most certainly packs an energetic punch.

Giles Woodeforde, Oxford Times

See this while you can – or miss one of Oxford’s best ever Shakespeare productions. Sparkling with creativity and wit, this is a light-touch production of a light-touch play, wringing every nuance from the language and the laughter.

Oxford Shakespeare Company has an enviable repertoire of imaginatively-directed plays and their 2007 Midsummer Night’s Dream pushes the bar even further. The ten-strong cast carry off the poetry and the performances with beguiling simplicity – hiding the hard work they’ve undoubtedly put in.

The fantastical story of the fairyland world playing games with a woodland world of wooing lovers looks awkward on paper. But in the mouths and minds of these players, the play comes alive with fluid clarity – running through its two-hours like a well-oiled machine.

While Andrew Hodges’ performances as Bottom and Demetrius will rightly attract applause, all the cast deserve plaudits for their unselfish contributions to a well-knit whole. Hodges is a gifted comedian: better, he has a Branagh-like ability of word and gesture, bringing the poetry and comedy bursting to life.

Sarah Jane Wolverson’s Helena runs from sad to sexy in a deftly delivered spectrum of comedy and emotion – nicely contrasted with Alice Keenan’s fiery-spirited, funny Hermia. Richard Keightley’s curly-haired Lysander brings a bouncily love-lorn contrast to Hodges’ burly Demetrius. Such contrasts are not accidental and director Jilly Bond mines the gold.

Lessons in language are given by David Chittenden’s virile Oberon and unctuous Theseus, and by the fluency of Kirsty Yates’ Titania. Physical presence and comedy is beautifully conveyed by Joanna Morse Palmer’s aerial acrobatics, mirrored by Charlotte Baltrop-Gallet’s clownish copying.

Becci Gemmell’s Puck is a buzz-fly of childish energy, bagging laughs from merest movements and reactions. Ian Cairns’ comedic Quince/Wall gets to wear bricks and a tutu and wins the audience in both.

Shot through with sexiness, this is a sensuous, fast-paced production which can’t fail to leave wide grins on happy faces. See it in the sun and enjoy a play in full bloom. If wet, it’ll bring the sun back to your summer.

Musical, physical, fluid and fun – no eye has seen, nor ear has heard an Oxford play so thoroughly enjoyable - well, not for ages anyway.

Glenn Watson, Daily Info

Very little is known about William Shakespeare – even his birth date is uncertain and the spelling of his name, which appears variously as Shakespere, Shakespear and Shakspeare. The dates of his plays are equally uncertain.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream was probably written to celebrate the wedding of Elizabeth Carey and Thomas Berkeley in 1596, and experts believe the exceptionally poor summer of 1594 was the stimulus for Titania’s preoccupation with the imbalance in nature. Her concern is one with which modern audiences can easily identify, in these days of climate change. Whatever the weather as you watch, you will certainly be aware of it in the open air of an English summer.

It’s a play about the nature of relationships; the more established union between the Fairy King and Queen contrasts with those of the young lovers, forged in the course of the shortest night of the year spent in a wood near Athens. This is the haunt of wild beasts and Athens is a walled city ruled by a warrior Duke. The final relationship to be resolved is the politically motivated affiliation of Theseus and Hippolyta, his captive, the defeated Queen of the Amazons.

It is also a play about transformation – it culminates in the conferring of a blessing by Oberon and Titania on the other couples – a scene which is often cut, surprisingly, but which demonstrates how much their relationship has changed. As does everyone who spends time in the wood; the longer the lovers remain, the more their outward appearance (reflected in their costumes in our production) alters. The power of nature works on them, enhanced here in the specially composed choral music which provides the voice of the wood. Nowhere is the physical transformation clearer than in Bottom’s metamorphosis from workman to ass – and back to mortal, but with a greater awareness of his own limitations.

This is the Greece of Shakespeare’s imagination, the craftspeople the artisans of his native Warwickshire, transported to Athens with little concession to their nationality, unless it’s in their dramatic aspirations – ancient Greece was, after all, the birthplace of drama. We hope you enjoy the drawing together of these disparate threads, intricately woven by the playwright (how appropriate that Bottom is a weaver) and as you watch on an English summer’s day or night, surrounded by the countryside Shakespeare loved, let your imagination fly with us to the world of the immortal spirits.

Jilly Bond 2007