Review: A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, Brockley Jack Theatre, 7 July 2016

Not far off the solstice, to the distinctly ungladed environs of south-east London for Wildcard Theatre's pacy, punchy, provocative A Midsummer Night's Dream (continuing at the Brockley Jack Theatre until 23 July). All-through in 90 minutes, we get the three interlocking stories speeded up, in jeans and T-shirts and with a few ad-libs and songs thrown in along the way. But, as ever with this most familiar of Shakespeare's plays, the question is - does it work?

And, mostly, it does. James Mear's shirtless, guitar-strumming Puck holds it together with a mischief leavened by a world-weary air - for the first time I found myself thinking about why he has no lover in the fairy kingdom and how tough it must be to engineer the affairs of others in such circumstances. Lysander and Demetrius make a nicely contrasting pair: Joshua Leese is raffishly bohemian as The Man who inspires Hermia's risk-it-all love, with Peter Dewhurst uptight and preppy as Demetrius, whose fretting about his glasses is a nice motif for a play that turns on how we see each other. I also liked Elly Lowney's little homage to Woody Allen's Miles Monroe from Sleeper as a shuffling, robotic Moonshine.

In packing out a small space with 13 actors, many of whom play instruments too, there's always a danger of just a bit too much going on, and I felt that many speeches were delivered too quickly - particularly the gorgeous bickering between Hermia and Helena. Director James Meteyard could add 10 more minutes, still go all-through and give the words some time to breathe - the comedy would look after itself.

At £14 (£12 for concessions), it's a show that offers excellent value and might suit a teen studying Shakespeare or someone who did so years ago and wants to put a toe back in the vast pool of his canon. You don't get all the bells and whistles (and mercifully so, for those of us who have seen this play with literally too many bells and whistles) and you don't get a Play That Goes Wrong-style total demolition of Pyramus and Thisbe, but you do get plenty of fun and you do get those glorious words.

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