Review of A Midsummer Night's Dream

"Some Dazzling Movement Towards Shakespeare." by Stephen Hunt for remotegoat on 20/03/10

The challenge of putting on classic work is to pull it off with originality, style and flair. How many West End shows have flopped when interpretation has lagged woefully behind an extravagant budget? But take a Shakespearean text, combine it with Chickenshed's ambition and foresight and you get a spellbinding poem of theatrical movement, enhanced by music and light.

If a tree swaying in sunlight has ever caught your eye, you'll love how Chickenshed unfolds the dream with an undulating sea of energy, gesture and grace. If the array of individual performances comprising the spectacle seem too much to take in, come back and see it again.

Chickenshed's movement supervisors are clearly masters of the glorious space they work in. Their awe-inspiring wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling choreography of the one hundred and eighty strong cast, steals the show. And to have so many performers without the stage ever becoming cluttered is itself, quite a trick. Its akin to the illusion of a bottled ship - you understand what it is and wonder at how its done. But the show's genius isn't limited to what it creates with its numerically formidable cast.

Here is a Puck as I'm sure he's never been played. Here is a riot of mechanicals to steal your heart as they fumble and flounder in their efforts to entertain the duke's court. The decision to carry Shakespeare's text into song lyrics maybe why just one number in each half delivered a dash of show song panache. But then is this a musical? After all, the fairy dust infused dance, tumbling and flight, easily eclipses the songs. Either way, I'd have preferred the music to have been behind the singers supporting them, rather than competing with them, if not actually obscuring them at times.

That quibble aside, if you're looking for one of the most entertaining and heart warming shows in London, come to Chickenshed in Southgate, N14. There's no finer example of Gestalt philosophy in a theatre; the sum of the parts is so much greater than the whole.

Event Venues & Times
finished	Chickenshed | Chase Side, Southgate, London, N14 4PE

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