A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Chichester Festival Theatre: a ‘punchy, techno delight’

Chichester Festival Theatre has put an “ingenious spin” on “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” by transporting the action to John Major’s Britain, said Fiona Mountford in The Telegraph.

It’s the summer of 1994 and the “frolics in the Athenian forest” have been transformed into an illegal rave on the South Downs. As the Conservative government of the time “struggles to reassert the supremacy of law and order” by introducing legislation to criminalise raves, the countryside is turned into a “place of freedom and self-expression away from the constraints of city life”.

In this riotously fun production, Theseus (Tom Kanji) – now “Theseus Howard, Member of Parliament for Chichester” – is preparing to marry Hippolyta (Celeste Dodwell). The “tangled quartet of young lovers” has also been updated: Hermia (Angela Sant’Albano) chooses to run away with a “gender-switched” Lysanda (Ellie Larkin) so she can escape the clutches of Demetrius (Kieran Taylor-Ford), who in turn is the source of the “unrequited affections” of Helena (Freya Parks). But the South Downs are being used to host an “all-night rave” filled with “mind-altering substances”.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.

Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.

Sign up

The term “love juice” appears twice in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, which Justin Audibert and Hannah Joss have used as “textual justification” for staging their “lovingly juiced up” play around a “narcotic, orgiastic woodland party”, said Mark Lawson in The Guardian. Comedian Munya Chawawa makes his theatrical debut as a “bewitchingly played” Nick Bottom. His physically energetic performance filled with “slapstick gymnastics” paused the show with “earned applause”.

Neon lights and “post-psychedelic imagery” provide the bright, funky rave-inspired backdrop, said Neil Norman in The Stage, and the sets are cleverly put together. This is a “punchy, techno delight to revel in for two and a half hours”, said Theatre and Tonic, with stand-out performances, choreography and costume design. “You would be an absolute fool to miss it.”