MARCH 1- 13, BATH: The beauty, humour and darkness of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream were brought to vivid life in a family adaptation that had the children rolling in the aisles with laughter.
TRB's Young Productions used an enchanting mixture of mask, puppetry and acting to perform the famous tale for a family audience which captivated adults and children from start to finish.
A cast of just three took on the host of characters with huge energy and flexibility, using a magical set to create a pocket world within a world, where the chaos and colour of fairy land played havoc with the lives of ordinary mortals.
Despite the accessibility of the play for younger members of the audience, TRB did not sacrifice the extraordinary language and imagery of Shakespeare's text a credit to the writer Hattie Naylor.
Pooja Kumar played Puck, Bottom, Demetrius and Egeus her Bottom was a triumph and one of the many comic highlights of the show was Bottom's finger puppet performance of the tragedy of Pyramus and Thisbe at the end of the play, that had the audience weeping with laughter.
Oberon, Theseus and Lysander were played by Martin Doyle leaving the magnificent Jennifer Jellicorse with the roles of Titania, Hippolyta, Helena and Hermia.
At the end of the performance my eight-year-old daughter announced she had expected the play to be boring and instead had found it to be very funny. If a company can bring Shakespeare to life for eight-year-olds, they must on the right track.
Sarah Singleton
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Bath Shakespeare Festival
Ustinov Studio
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