Tickets were gifted in return for an honest review.
The Royal Shakespeare Company’s first co-production with the Unicorn Theatre delivers a vibrant, high-energy A Midsummer Night’s Dream that successfully bridges the gap between Shakespearean tradition and accessible family theatre. Co-directed by Rachel Bagshaw and Robin Belfield, this lean, 90-minute staging is specifically tailored for audiences aged seven and up, leanly interrogating the power of play, emotional growth, and the human capacity for change.
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| Chris Jared and Amelia Donkor. Photo by Ellie Kurttz |
Bagshaw and Belfield have stripped away the stuffy, intimidating barriers often associated with classical theatre without diluting the brilliant rhythm of Shakespeare's original language.
Desperate to escape their rigid fates in Athens, young lovers Hermia and Lysander flee into a moonlit forest, hotly pursued by Demetrius and a heartbroken Helena. There, their chaotic love quadrangle collides with a bitter feud between the fairy monarchs, Oberon and Titania, as well as a band of amateur, working-class actors rehearsing a play. When the mischievous fairy Puck intervenes with a magical love potion, identities and affections are hilariously scrambled—most notably transforming the boastful actor Bottom into a donkey who becomes the object of the spellbound Fairy Queen's affections. Ultimately, the forest acts as a transformative playground where, through a night of illusion and mayhem, the characters test their emotional limits and discover their capacity to change before waking up to a restored, newly harmonious reality.
An exceptionally hard-working cast of eight brings to life this fantastical comedy with clarity and a sense of play. Anchoring the chaos, Chris Jared and Amelia Donkor bring a mature, commanding weight to the dual roles of Theseus/Oberon and Hippolyta/Titania, while Josephine-Fransilja Brookman plays Puck with a contemporary, mischievous charisma that acts as the perfect engine for the play's magic.
Doubling rolling the Lovers and the Mechanical is a clever move and works really well. Scout Worsley pivots brilliantly from a fierce, desperate Hermia to a silliness of Peter Quince. Boni Adeliyi tracks a beautifully poignant emotional arc as Helena, while providing sharp comedic contrast as Starveling. Kaireece Denton (Lysander/Snug) and Shahin Rezvani (Demetrius/Flute) lean heavily into the absurdity of youth, leaning on physical comedy that keeps the younger audience members engrossed.
It's Emmy Stonelake who steals the show as they switch from the stern authoritarian Egeus to a bombastic, utterly irrepressible, larger-than-life Nick Bottom. Their high-energy delivery is fun to watch throughout. There was a hilarious moment with Egeus' moustache, which had the audience and cast in stitches. The play within the play of Pyramus and Thisbe is a sheer delight and performed brilliantly by Stonelake and the company.
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| Scout Worsley, Kaireece Denton, Boni Adeliyi and Shahin Rezvani. Photo by Ellie Kurttz. |
Visually and sonically, the production features an inclusive theatre design. Lily Arnold’s set transforms the stage from a rigid, sterile Athens into a fluid, imaginative forest, perfectly complemented by Sally Ferguson’s dynamic, mood-shifting lighting and Laura Cubitt's whimsical movement direction. Holly Khan’s sound design and composition infuse the woods with an eerie, playful heartbeat that elevates the stakes of the lovers' confusion.
The production integrates accessibility directly into its creative DNA through Will Monks’ exceptional video and caption design. Rather than being a static afterthought at the side of the stage, the creative captions are projected directly onto the set, moving, changing colour, and practically dancing alongside the actors. It not only ensures the production is accessible to deaf and hard-of-hearing audiences but also brilliantly aids younger viewers in tracking Shakespeare’s language, making the text visual, dynamic, and wonderfully alive.
This Dream is a lean, joyful production that doesn't just entertain its young audience but actively invites them into the storytelling process, proving that the themes of empathy, flexibility, and transformation are as magical as they are essential for the next generation of theatregoers. It captures the pure, chaotic joy of imagination and proves that Shakespearean magic belongs to everyone.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
A Midsummer Night's Dream runs at The Other Place in Stratford-Upon-Avon until Sunday 30th August 2026. For tickets and more information visit https://www.rsc.org.uk/a-midsummer-nights-dream
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| Emmy Stonelake and Amelia Donkor. Photo by Ellie Kurttz. |
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