Shakespeare Globe

A Midsummer Night's Dream

by William Shakespeare
Until 4 October

**** "Jonathan Munby’s effervescent direction... Enthusiastically applauded by a capacity audience... Siobhan Redmond is wonderfully funny" The Times

**** "Jonathan Munby has taken Shakespeare's much-loved comedy of errors, bound it in a tapestry of music, magic and madcap ebullience, and launched an irrepressible crowd pleaser... luscious, multi-sensory theatre... Munby's cast turn out some great performances" Time Out Critics' Choice

**** "Explodes like joyous fireworks... Don't miss" Sunday Times

**** "Summer larks aplenty... Laura Rogers' Helena and Pippa Nixon's Hermia are both brilliantly contrasted... The mechanicals are dominated by Paul Hunter's hilarious Bottom... Jonathan Munby's production is a bonkers panto of confusion and mayhem... Well-earned bellows of audience delight" Daily Mail

**** "Puck, Michael Jibson, is an enthusiastic mischief-maker... Paul Hunter (Bottom) is a comedy typhoon" Financial Times

"Tom Mannion (Oberon) is wry, understated and majestical" Daily Telegraph

"The Mechanicals are so joyously funny they have most of the groundlings whimpering for mercy, so by the time the billowing curtains wash over the audience like a tide, they're in this Dream's thrall" Metro

Hermia loves Lysander and Helena loves Demetrius – but Demetrius is supposed to be marrying Hermia. When the Duke of Athens tries to enforce the marriage, the lovers take refuge in the woods outside the city, and walk into the midst of a dispute between the king and queen of the fairies. And they are not alone. So, too, does a group of amateur actors rehearsing a play. Between the angry fairies, the bumbling players and the dazed lovers, flies Puck armed with a love juice capable of making anyone fall for the first person they set eyes upon – no matter how unsuitable.

From the harsh Draconian court of Athens to the wild freedom of the woods, individuals fight to establish who they are. Sexuality, identity and trust are explored in a world where nothing is quite what it seems, where the boundaries of reality are blurred, and where our worst fears become a living nightmare.

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