This has obviously been a big undertaking, and the effort, skill and love that a very large number of Barn members have put into it is apparent throughout. A ‘promenade’ production where the action moved around meant that almost the entire building was beautifully dressed up with foliage, lights, props, etc. to represent the themes of the play – the wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta and the magic of the nighttime forest.

The production, directed by Steve Thompson and Lou Wallace, was fast-paced and energetic, bringing lots of sound, movement and colour to the play. It had a stellar cast with many strong performances from minor as well as major characters. Much of the casting had a natural gender balance, giving us, for example, a group of mechanicals that were more female than male (including ‘Nicola’ Bottom, excellently played by Julia Riley).

The audience were split into two groups. The first group saw the first scene of the court performed in the bar while the second group had the first meeting of the mechanicals in the Studio. We then swapped round to see the other opening scene before all gathering to continue in the main theatre – all without bumping into each other. Mr Shakespeare didn’t give as many lines to the mechanicals as to the court so we had a lot of comic business before they got going to make up the time – lots of hellos and introductions and cries of ‘darling’ (they’re actors, after all). This served as a clever way of giving the mechanicals individual characters; it was mostly achieved with mime and expertly done. The court (or ‘real-life’) scenes were set in the 1920s and we were treated to classic songs of the period in the bar before the action began, including from one singer who became overcome with emotion while performing – it became apparent later this was Helena. This was all great fun, and worked splendidly as a way in to meeting the characters and starting the story.

The main theatre space had a distinctive and unusual set, which partly came about from a decision to use old items from the Barn’s history found in the props cupboard. You’d think that the presence of three doors at the back of the stage wouldn’t be useful for evoking a forest setting, nor would the collection of other, rather random, items lying around or attached to the side flats. This was not a worry – the lighting and live music conveyed the required atmosphere and the strangeness of the combination of objects somehow appropriately evoked mystery and magic.

From the beginning, the scenes in Athens were brilliantly led by David Thompson as Theseus, avuncular but nevertheless dominating his court, though failing to notice, at least at the start, that his betrothed, Hippolyta (Jess King, making the most of a minimal part) wasn’t at all enthusiastic about their approaching nuptials. It’s often felt that the fairy king and queen, Oberon and Titania, mirror the real-life Theseus and Hippolyta and are frequently played by the same actors. This was not done here; however, it was subtly implied by the way in which the fairy court transformed into the Athens court hunt at the end of the play and the fact that Hippolyta appeared to have had a change of heart, perhaps mirroring Titania’s journey. One stand-out performance from the courtiers was Egea (Hannah Sayer), mother of Hermia, who was incredibly (and hilariously) scary. I’d have been convinced that she was going to blow someone’s head off with a shotgun had I not been quite certain that the bard didn’t include that.

Much of the main action that drives the plot involves the lovers, and the four actors portraying them (Kizzie Hopkinson, Jay Puranik, James Copeman and Martha Furnival) were exceedingly well matched and gave top-class performances. They hurtled through the torments and contortions that the plot demands of them with passion and conviction.

We laugh at the lovers’ plight, but the comedy of the mechanicals has a different tone, being weighed down with unfunny Elizabethan puns, which often present problems. This was expertly overcome using lots of introduced business and words that were relatable and funny to a modern audience. A new character was slipped in, the prompt for the mechanicals’ performance, who was continually giving prompts at the most inappropriate times and being shouted at; the culmination of this joke got the biggest laugh of the night.

Movement played a big part in this production. Titania and her attendant fairies kept up a wave of flowing dance-like movements with their arms throughout their opening scene which was gorgeous to look at, and indeed Titania kept this up throughout her subsequent argument with Oberon, which was perhaps a bit too much – it made her look like she wasn’t concentrating. The emphasis was on pace, action and excitement. This drove us fast through the main story, though at times some excitable shrieking was overwhelming the text. The young Puck (Jonah Crook) threw himself about the stage at a rate of knots and could perform an excellent pratfall. Though there were some stiller passages, the emphasis wasn’t really on beauty and poetry. I wouldn’t worry about this too much for the court and the lovers (the narrative drive more than compensates), but for the fairy world I found it more problematic. Titania (Alice Croot) spoke her poetry well, but I missed it rather in the dialogues between Oberon and Puck.