In which my Lap almost acquires a Bottom

In an extremely occasional, if not plainly almost abandoned series, of reviews and things found interesting last night we went to the opening night of the Ludlow Festival and saw A Midsummer Night's Dream.

This is around the third Dream put on at the Festival over the past 40 years and given the time of year and the setting, the sloping bank inside the ruined castle, that's no real surprise. It's also the second production for the same director, Glen Walford, who happens to be local, born in Areley Kings, and shares the same hairdresser as J.

The set is really very good, a large gossamer oak tree with fairy lights, and a stepped stage around it.

We had seats right over on the right but in row C, with no one in front of me, which had repercussions that I'll explain later. Being over on the right meant we couldn't see the stage left entrances and exits but great care had been taken with the sight lines and there was very little that we missed.

The cast is the usual ensemble of young actors surrounding an experienced older actor, Matthew Devitt as Bottom. In an interesting juxtaposition Titania is played by a ballet dancer, Sarah Wildor, who has a reasonable repertoire in cattishness but her dancing is certainly more accomplished than her acting.

The one actor that stood out other than Matthew Devitt was Emily Watcher as Helena, she has this ability to be gauche and worldly at the same time and overwhelmed Emily Parker's Hermia. Helena is a difficult character to get right, the other three are set in their ambitions, Helena is the one that is really suffering as Lysander is as shallow as can be.

This is very much a director's production, from the use of music, the Mechanicals all play instruments (or mime them very well), and there's an accompanist at the front of stage the entire time, each moment is punctuated by music; to the staging of the extended play on words about the relative height of Hermia and Helena with Helena at the top of the main stairs and Hermia on the stage itself allowing some sense to remain when the two actresses are almost of a size.

But it is Bottom that rules this Dream, as he should. Devitt makes Bottom a yeoman version of Falstaff, not so much a drunk perhaps but a jolly blowhard yet still amazed. During the final Act, the Mechanical's play (which has been often rushed through in other productions), drove the audience (and me), to fits of giggles and snorts of laughter. The amount of physical comedy and slapstick, including Bottom sinking into his breastplate such that his head disappeared and was left with his helmet wobbling on the top of it, underlining that this was never really a play but an entertainment.

At some stage during this byplay, Bottom stumbled down the stairs and towards me, he is not a small man, though short and I almost thought he'd collapse into me when he stopped and forged back on stage. Given where my seat was I'd been half expecting something of the sort. At the end the fairies went out into the audience and sprinkled 'fairy dust' around. S was covered.


The jarring details were the ludicrous flowers, looking like something a poor stage magician might employ.