A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

Bristol Old Vic

Four stars

Runs until June 7 - Box office 0117 987 7877

It is sadly all too rare to hear an audience laugh properly at a Shakespeare play. By that I don't mean the knowing chuckles of the cognoscenti that serve merely to say "Oh yes, I know the play", but proper belly laughs like you might get at a West End comedy. Yet the Old Vic rings loud with them. Director David Farr has managed to pull off the rare trick of making Shakespeare both comprehensible and accessible to a broad audience, whilst still retaining a sheen of artistic quality which should satisfy any rabid anti-populists. This Midsummer Night's Dream neither slips into dry academicism nor seeks to serve merely as a 'star vehicle': to put it more succinctly, this is not a production that disappears up its Bottom.

The setting is late-Victorian. Theseus and his cohorts stride around in the military uniforms and tailcoats which have become a familiar feature of Shakespeare productions recently. And when Hermia (Lyndsey Marshal) punches her way through the court backdrop to enter the forest, the period theme is maintained, as designer Angela Davies conjures up an Arthur Rackham world of dripping boughs and crawling roots. Amidst this nineteenth century Gothic fantasy erupts another, later type of Gothic: Tim Burton-esque fairies tottering around in ragged lace with airbrushed faces like marionette refugees from a neglected doll's house. Meanwhile Jason Barnes' sound design of faint tinkles and other eerie murmurs weaves magic on an almost subliminal level.

Ronan Vibert's Theseus is a pompous and rather ineffectual monarch, all inbred underbite and "don't yer knows". This contrasts strongly with his sour-tempered, sensual Oberon: Mick Jagger meets Alan Rickman in a floor-length velvet coat. His sidekick (Tom Smith) is less elvish - or even puckish - than one usually sees, and more of a mischievous underwashed Celtic goblin in a shabby tweed jacket and apron. Amongst the well-presented lovers the finest is Kate Fleetwood, whose frazzled high energy performance transforms Helena from a tiresome whinge bucket into something far more touching. And leading the mechanicals - who are, happily, underplayed for once to fine comic effect - Stewart Wright's Bottom roars around the stage with the emotional continence of a three year old.

The overall comfort of this production comes from its digestibility. There are no directorial conceits that do not work, no performances that jar. It is a nicely balanced piece in which no single footprint leaves too big a mark, and which never overreaches itself. As a result, Farr has managed to deliver a refreshing production which whisks the audience through the story without ever becoming self-conscious about the fact that it is Shakespeare or ostentatious in its artistry.

Toby O'Connor Morse