Julia Rank

Crudup brings gravitas and quiet dignity to the role, as well as a touch of delicacy (he could have been ruthless in his approach, but he wasn’t), though he lacks a big stirring speech to bring everything together. As Amy, Gough conveys her quiet strength in a relatively underwritten part. Despite being terrified of being made a widow on her wedding day, she won’t unquestioningly “stand by her man” because that’s what’s expected, and she has the chance to showcase her singing ability with songs by Bruce Springsteen and others.

At the centre of the storm is Sean Hayes as Levant himself, reprising his well-deserved Tony-winning role. Described as “Eeyore in a cheap suit”, his lack of charm and disregard for people-pleasing was a breath of fresh air in the sycophantic entertainment business. Hayes is considerably more boyish looking than the real Levant but has the hangdog expression and an abundance of tics and twitches (his voice also calls to mind Paul Lynde, who was barely closeted and heavily coded as bipolar on Bewitched a few years later). To make the casting even more ideal, Hayes trained as a pianist before becoming an actor and plays a rendition of “Rhapsody in Blue” that’s essentially a nervous breakdown on the piano.

The production loses some momentum in the scenes with the lovers, who are pleasant but largely two-dimensional. But the Rude Mechanicals, led by Felicity Montagu’s Mistress Quince as a long-suffering adult education facilitator, present a truly uproarious staging of Pyramus and Thisbe that’s also touching in its dedication to teamwork, however chaotic. Emmanuel Akwafo is charming as Bottom, dressed in a yellow boilersuit, who is both innocent and deeply serious about his art (“It’s in the round!” he hisses at the Wall). It’s a play in which the whimsical and the serious intertwine and joy prevails. Topped off with a finale filled with a group dance and giant moon-like beach balls floating over the pit, it’s the best party of the summer.

After Booth meets his end, the narrative continues confusingly. The story has all the ingredients to be a gripping and resonant yarn but the telling needs a considerable amount of tightening in order to be compelling theatre.

Though the production is something of an endurance test, it's worth remembering that hearing audiences who don’t know BSL are merely required to spend two-and-a-half hours between the hearing and Deaf worlds – such a sense of dislocation is something that the Deaf community is essentially required to navigate on a full-time basis. It's a powerful contemporary message for this classic play.