Lyn Gardner 

Magic on a shoestring

Andrew Hilton's brilliantly clear, beautifully simple production is played on an almost totally bare rectangular space with the audience sitting on three sides. Yet despite its minimalism, it conjures up a rare sense of enchantment, creating the feeling that it would be easy to slip between the parallel worlds of humans and fairies. To do this with just a single strand of fairy lights, music and unaccompanied voices is something of an achievement.
  
  


Andrew Hilton's brilliantly clear, beautifully simple production is played on an almost totally bare rectangular space with the audience sitting on three sides. Yet despite its minimalism, it conjures up a rare sense of enchantment, creating the feeling that it would be easy to slip between the parallel worlds of humans and fairies. To do this with just a single strand of fairy lights, music and unaccompanied voices is something of an achievement.

There is something so fresh and unforced about this production that it reminds me of early Shakespeare productions by the young Deborah Warner. Hilton and his cast tell the story with no fuss but with an exceptional eye for detail. Even the social standing of each of the Mechanicals is clearly delineated; this is not just the usual gaggle of clowns. With merely a dash of eyeliner and an earring they are suddenly and completely transformed into Cobweb, Pease Blossom and Mustard Seed. There are so many similar moments that you wonder if Hilton has his own theatrical magic wand.

The lovers, in their various permutations, take centre stage in this production, which celebrates both the transforming power of love and of theatre itself. Mark Buffery's Theseus/Oberon rules the roost with iron charm both in Athens and the enchanted forest, a kind of benign magician ensuring that true love runs its course. Dee Sadler's wonderfully still, watchful Hippolyta is in thrall to him but also suggests that she has got the measure of the man.

There is not a dud performance, and there are some very fine ones: a sly Puck from Chris Donnelly who revels in others' misfortune and turns up later as a discomforted flunky at the wedding celebrations; an excellent Quince (Peter Clifford), obviously a veteran of amateur dramatics; and a most enjoyable and surprising Flute from John Mackay, whose initial reluctance to play the hapless heroine Thisbe in the Mechanicals' play turns into a Sarah Bernhardt-type enthusiasm for the role.

This is a lovely production, a really great evening out and further proof of how those with real energy and imagination working in the regions are increasingly eschewing theatre buildings in favour of other spaces.

• Until April 8. Box office: 07989 468584.

***** Unmissable **** Recommended *** Enjoyable ** Mediocre * Terrible

 

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