A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Golden Goose Theatre.

Formed by a cohort of Italia Conti graduates, The New Rep Theatre Company’s diverse range of recent productions has included offerings from Ibsen, Strindberg, Eugene O’Neill and Oscar Wilde. For the Lambeth Fringe, directors Richard Pepper and David Knight deliver a slimmed-down 90-minute take on A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Four lovers’ affections get tangled in a magical forest, fairies meddle with their hearts, and a group of amateur actors bungles a play.  By morning, misunderstandings are cleared, couples are correctly paired, and harmony is restored.

The production’s late 1960s setting has promise: think Fairy King Oberon as a rebellious rock god, mischievous servant Puck as a stoned trickster, the forest as a kind of acid-fuelled, free-love Woodstock. Indeed, the 1960s counterculture gave way to a 1970s conservative backlash, which is essentially what happens at the end of the play. Yet, aside from crocheted halter tops, a poncho or two, a couple of songs, and a nod to A Clockwork Orange, the directors make almost nothing of their milieu. One cannot help but feel that they have missed a trick here.

Frederick Russell smouldered like a young Hugh Grant in Adam Kinneen’s recent ensemble piece Dick. His Demetrius, who loves Hermia (Jamie Bunn, sassy, playful and sparky), but really ought to be with Helena (Evie Butler, nagging, schoolmarmish and self-righteous), smoulders like a slightly deranged young Hugh Grant. Perhaps it is an Italia Conti thing. Kim Whatmore plays Lysander, who loves Hermia but is drugged into wanting Helena, as a needy, whining nepo-kid. The lovers have some chemistry, but it all feels a little by the book. Their quarrel in Act Three should be a comic highlight, yet Pepper and Knight cannot quite find enough to make us laugh out loud, here or elsewhere in the production.

In some productions, Oberon is playful and capricious. Edward Neale, whose pin-striped suit and stylised make-up bring to mind Alex from A Clockwork Orange, transforms that spirited mischief into something darker, closer to cruel and calculated manipulation. It is a pleasing turn, complemented by a well-judged if slightly too laid-back performance from Lucy Blott as Titania. One feels she might well give up her servant boy without being drugged if Oberon would only try a bit harder. Andi Bickers’ athletic, feline, cartwheeling, hair-cropped Puck is good, too, though unexpectedly naïve at times. The character is always both manipulated and a manipulator. Here we get more of the former and less of the latter.

Zara Ally plays Peter (renamed Petra) Quince with the frazzled air of an overworked drama teacher, and carries the clipboard (or plastic folder) that seems mandatory in modern productions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Jack Gogarty’s Bottom flings his arms, points dramatically, sucks his thumb, and gestures to imaginary objects in a swoon of declamatory over-acting while rehearsing Pyramus and Thisbe. It is an engaging turn by an actor who has solid comic timing, but again feels a little by the book. One could do without the comic adlibs and parody of uber-wokeness in his determination to give an equal nod to ‘ladies’ and ‘gentlemen’ in the audience. Gruff Williams’ Snout is the best of the other mechanicals, and his ear-crashing, wall-forming delivers the one big laugh of the production.

There are things to like in this production, and solid performances make for a tolerable 90 minutes. But ultimately, the piece never quite fulfils the promise of its setting.

Writers: William Shakespeare (adapted by Richard Pepper)

Directors: Richard Pepper and David Knight