A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Theatre In The Forest, Sutton Hoo, Suffolk)

Verdict: Tree-mendous

Review by Tony Rennell

My dream was for a summer’s night, a balmy one, not rain-sodden, and by some fairy magic we got it for this enchanting, imaginative open-air production at Sutton Hoo, burial place of an Anglo-Saxon king 1,500 years ago, in the Suffolk countryside.

This ‘haunted grove’ was real, the stage laid out and Shakespeare’s much-loved comedy played out beneath a magnificent, towering sweet chestnut tree. ‘I know a bank where the wild thyme grows,’ sings Oberon, and we were there.

The setting couldn’t be more perfect — nor the cast: seven, multi-tasking, multi-talented actors throwing themselves into all 20 parts, appearing and re-appearing in different guises without missing a beat, a feat of energy and invention n itself.

Vincent Moisy is a brilliant Bottom (plus Demetrius and Mustardseed), Ailis Duff a standout Peter Quince (Helena, Peaseblossom). Spectacular giant puppets made for unforgettable fairies.

No matter that in Midsummer Night’s Dream, there is an underlying theme of the cruelty and fickleness (the ‘sweet vexations’) of mortal love — ‘Cupid is a knavish lad’. Because what predominates is the farce and fun.

Joanna Carrick is a talented director who respects the verse while not afraid to nurse the story along with her own idiosyncratic additions. There were perhaps a tad too many asides, ad-libs and panto sing-alongs for my taste, but I bow to the audience, who joined in and roared out their approval.

I’m guessing Elvis’s You Were Always On My Mind and Zorba’s Dance (well, the play is set in Greece) were not in Shakespeare’s original text but I think, always eager to please, he would have approved.

This is the Red Rose Chain’s 25th annual summer production near its Ipswich base; a splendid achievement for a community theatre run on a shoestring. Long may it continue.