It may have poured down all afternoon, giving the summery wood near Athens all the sodden appeal of Skegness, but things are definitely looking up at the Globe, where an enticing Twelfth Night is followed by an enjoyable Midsummer Night's Dream.
It is not just the damp weather that makes this something of a wet Dream. Watched over by a bobbing balloon moon suspended high above the yard, Mike Alfreds' production not only has a sleepy sexual undercurrent with a Theseus/Oberon (Paul Higgins) who can hardly keep his hands off his Hippolyta/Titania (Geraldine Alexander), but is also funnier than most. Led by John Ramm's wonderful Bottom, the Rude Mechanicals are a distinctive crew who display more clashing egos and attempts to upstage each other than the most competitive amateur dramatics society.
Above all, Alfreds' production has clarity of thought, storytelling and verse-speaking, although it is seriously in need of pace. Three hours is too long to dream the dream, particularly in the Globe's nightmarishly uncomfortable seating.
Alfreds sets the play at a grown-up slumber party the night before the royal wedding, complete with sleeping bags and a pyjama- and nightie-clad court. The wood near Athens is deep sleep itself, a place heavy-eyed with love, desire, dreams and fairy guile. Towards the end it has an atmosphere that captures something of the strange drugged feeling between waking and sleeping or the moist, soporific heaviness that follows sexual satisfaction.
Jenny Tiramani's costume designs cleverly make the quick change from mortals to sprites entirely irrelevant. In order to transform themselves, the cast merely have to flick a switch and their costumes light up like Christmas trees.
I have yet to see a production at the Globe so completely captivating that it is the point and the whole point of being there, and this Dream is not so engrossing that it alleviates my doubts about the theme-park atmosphere of the place. But it is a jolly and enjoyable experience and, just as there is more than one might think to a dream, the actors offer enormous skill and subtlety in a production that looks easy but is probably hard as hell to deliver.
· In rep until September 27. Box office: 020-7401 9919.
