A Midsummer Night’s Dream

“Blissfully funny, exquisitely detailed and sexy in a sinister way. Great show”

Lyn Gardner (Guardian) on Twitter
And in her 4-star review in the Guardian on 20 February, Lyn Gardner described it as an evening genuinely touched by magic. You can read her full review here. 

“Andrew Hilton’s inventive, .. crystally spoken production… utterly free from gauzy frolics”

Susannah Clapp, The Observer

“Andrew Hilton directs this play as if it had never been played before: his production has a freshness, a boisterous energy, a tone of loving mockery and a sense of humour that ranges from biting to enchanting…The performances are polished, with a tempo like music, and the actors play together with a sense of intimacy, like a chamber orchestra”

John Peter, The Times

Following its 2009 Roman season – a third near sell-out year in a row – Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory returns for its 11th spring season with two of Shakespeare’s most magical plays. A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Tempest.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream was part of our very first season in 2000 and will be the first play that we tackle for a second time. The way these plays change, responding afresh to each new casting, and to shifts in our own moods and focus, is typically Shakespearean. I can’t wait to rediscover it in 2010.  Andrew Hilton, Artistic Director

On the eve of the marriage of Theseus, Duke of Athens (and famed slayer of the Minotaur), to Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons, four much younger lovers find themselves lost and dangerously at odds in the midnight world of Oberon and Titania, King and Queen of the Fairies. Shakespeare’s most famous and popular comedy is a play for all ages and for all time.

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Reviews

You can read all the show’s reviews via the Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory website.

Those of you who follow Twitter will have picked up on Lyn Gardner’s (The Guardian) Tweet after press night for A Midsummer Night’s Dream this Wednesday, where she described the show as Blissfully funny, exquisitely detailed and sexy in a sinister way. Great show.
Audience members have been getting in touch with their comments, too, Sylvia Holliman wrote:
I think I have seen all of the Shakespeare productions which you have staged during the last few years, and they have all been brilliant. But last night’s performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream was a total dream!  The cast really brought the script to life, and I loved the energy, the humour, the nuances. I felt very privileged to have been a part of the audience.
Meanwhile, here’s what the other reviewers have been saying…
Sophie Lomax at Bristol247 loved its comic mayhem, heart-splitting loneliness and [...] sharp lesson in class politics all rolled into one. Read her full review here. The Stage’s Jeremy Brien was delighted by the sparkling offering. Read what else he thought here. Meanwhile the Bristol Evening Post gave the show a storming 8/10, with Gerry Parker particularly enamoured of the comic high jinks of the mechanicals. Read more here. Matt Whittle at Suit Yourself thought it was a truly fabulous production. Read his review here.