Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: James Templeton, Sharon Byatt, John Schumacher, Lucy Litchfield, Nick Wymer, Ed Barr Sim, Sam Donovan, Timothy Lucas, Chloe Taylor, Daniel Taylor, Lenny Wood, Neville Cann, Fra Gunn, Faye Griffiths, Emma Webber, Hannah Rankin, Lily Davies, James Ledsham, Luke Lucas.

So much can be made of a Shakespeare play that it is easy to get lost sometimes in the overwhelming grandeur of the thought, too much beating upon chests and furrowing of brow in which to capture the conscious of the audience looking for their out of Stratford fix or for the newly initiated into the greatest writer of English history. Sometimes all you need to appreciate the bard is beautiful simplicity, tight pursuit of telling the story with a smile upon the face and one on which the reverie and vision is built up layer by layer, to the point where all can be found to be revelling in the ambition, skill and genius of a man from the Midlands.

It is to this end that the producing and directing of A Midsummer Night’s Dream is arguably the one moment where the thin veil of gossamer can be seen through and touched so tentatively, lest the sparks and electricity of that revealing of spirit and sense of the emotional and seismic beauty is harnessed and used for summoning beguilement. Fun, playful, mischievous, the energy of a great and unbridled Puck, frisky, ethereal and never once subdued; Shakespeare doesn’t have to be unfathomable, to borrow a phrase, problematic, quite often it only requires someone to pull all the strings together and let the evening flow.

To perform back to back two very different productions of William Shakespeare’s work is a hard ask at the best of times but under the watchful eye of Daniel Taylor, and the lighting, sound design and assistant directing of Peter Mitchelson, the agility and positive endurance of the troop were once more again to be seen as teasingly cool, putting the sprightly in the sprite and capturing the mood with sincerity as well bounce.

Whether in the form of Puck, the role being reprised with devil may care glee by the astonishing James Templeton, John Schumacher’s booming Theseus and Oberon, the marvellous Chloe Taylor as Helena or Lucy Litchfield’s portrayal of Hermia, A Midsummer Night’s Dream is surely to be seen as high note of the gentleness in which Shakespeare could dwell, far from the thunder and brimstone of the classics, Hamlet, Macbeth, Henry V or Richard III, the tale of four Athenian lovers and the tricks played by the sprites and spirits is there to restore a kind of faith, that by keeping a production light hearted and entertaining is enough to quell the beast of impatience and the harbinger of long drawn out conclusions.

A wonderfully presented play, once more Daniel Taylor brings Shakespeare to a new point of overwhelming enjoyment.

Ian D. Hall