'A Midsummer Night's Dream' review — this bold wintry take on Shakespeare's play is one you've never seen before

Read our review of A Midsummer Night's Dream, directed by Holly Race Roughan, now in performances at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse to 31 January 2026.

Holly Race Roughan’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (a co-production between Shakespeare’s Globe and Headlong Theatre with Bristol Old Vic and Leeds Playhouse) marks the first time that Shakespeare’s fairy-filled comedy has been staged in the candlelit Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, and it’s clear from the beginning is going to be presented on its own terms. Dressed in a tutu and a torn tailcoat, Puck (Sergo Vares) pulls out a banana from his waistband and the audience is required to wait for him to eat it before the revels (as they are) can begin.

Featuring a chilly white set design with a shiny floor, by Max Johns, and the words “Perchance to dream” (from Hamlet) in gold lettering above the stage, midsummer is replaced with midwinter, as per Titania’s climate change speech. This is a deconstructed take that’s sprinkled with speeches from Romeo and Juliet (dramaturgy by Frank Peschier) to highlight the similarities between these two works with parallel themes that were written in quick succession.

The court of Athens is presided over by the psychotically thuggish Duke Theseus (Michael Marcus), who after all “won” his bride-to-be Hippolyta (Hedydd Dylan) through force. Their lovey-dovey exchanges are filled with bitter irony, and you can’t feeling that young Hermia would be far better off becoming a nun and turning her back on all this violence and corruption.

Danny Kirrane’s executive chef Bottom isn’t funny – and that isn’t meant as a criticism of his performance. Instead of the usual loveable, bravado-filled clown, he becomes a tragic figure who is filled with nihilism and is heartbroken by the way in which Theseus chucks his suckling pig on the floor just because he can. There is something quite tender in his encounter with the Titania akin to two lost souls finding some relief together before Bottom wakes up and delivers an angry version of Mercutio’s Queen Mab speech.

The ballet theme provides a touch of delicacy amid the brutality but the fairies’ dancing is made chilly and mechanical. Vares’s Puck is similarly desensitised from doing his master’s bidding. Dylan’s striking Titania is a gothic rock chick who is clearly fond of the changeling child (who is given some of the fairies’ lines – Pria Kalso also makes an unusually affecting Flute-as-Thisbe) but is too damaged herself to be an effective caregiver.

The lovers are credibly hormonal. This time, it’s Hermia (Tiwa Lade) who proposes getting cuddly on the bank, while Lysander (David Olanriregun) does the gentlemanly thing. Helena (Tara Tijani) is overtly sexually aggressive, though she’s no match for Demetrius’s (Lou Jackson) nasty entitlement. They provide many of the comic moments, including the way in which the boys remove their shirts despite the cold to try to impress Helena.

The performance of Pyramus and Thisbe winds up being unlike any version I’ve seen before. Not everything in this production gels but it does lead to a genuinely shocking denouement. It isn’t easy to make amends and request the hand of friendship under such circumstances.

A Midsummer Night's Dream is at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse to 31 January 2026. Book A Midsummer Night's Dream tickets on LondonTheatre.co.uk

Photo credit: A Midsummer Night's Dream (Photos by Helen Murray)