We saw the first act behind the garage shed, after which we proceeded to chairs behind the house. I dried them off with a towel I had remembered to bring with me. The setting although a bit damp was brilliant, with music from a piano within the house.

Review by Ian Ashmeade

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Directed by John Shippey

I GOT home from work on Friday night to find one of my friends could not make the performance of A Midsummer Nights Dream in a garden in Haddenham. It was raining, but the BBC weather forecast said it was going to clear later. I believed it but pulled on my wellies and shooting coat forced my wife to do the same just in case. Well actually she had her own wellies and coat, and we walked up the street to John Shippey’s house where the play was to take place.

We saw the first act behind the garage shed, after which we proceeded to chairs behind the house. I dried them off with a towel I had remembered to bring with me. The setting although a bit damp was brilliant, with music from a piano within the house.

We moved down the garden, following Puck (Oliver Scott) and the rest of the cast and fairies. Some of the most notable points of the play were Snug’s (Paul Smith) roar of a lion, a good job Pete Quince (Tony Ransome) warned us about that in the prologue to the play within a play.

The Fairies were real, I felt, as they ran and played out their parts, The costumes were great. Well done Gina, and the fairies (Kim Smith etc) who made them. Strange they did not have purple wings!

Nick Bottom (Chris Hindley) ended up by making a bit of and Ass of himself with Titania (Wendy Rolph), but recovered to die extremely slowly in the end. To watch Thisbe kiss the rear of the chink in the wall was very funny.

Finally, my wife and I were freezing and wet but we were extremely glad we turned up to watch the best production we have seen of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

I am sorry I could not mention everybody, but you were all brilliant.

Pic cap: Mary-Clare Smiley as the moth.