A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shed Theatre –

**½ (2½ stars)

Every year at the Edinburgh Fringe, there are several adaptations of a few of Shakespeare’s plays: Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream tend to be the popular ones and this year was no exception. The 2010 Fringe guide listed three productions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Because of the wealth of Shakespeare at the Fringe we have come to expect weird and wonderful things from these adaptations. Shed Theatre however, didn’t do any of the typical ‘Shakespeare at the Fringe’ effects like transcribing it to the 70’s or making it a musical etc. but instead created a very traditional adaptation.

The story, for anyone who doesn’t know it, is a bit of a Shakespearean trip. Two young lovers escape persecution by running into the forest; they are followed by another lover who also loves the girl, and then another girl who loves the spurned man. Into the mix of this love square, comes a pile of fairies, including the king and queen of the fairies who are having a fight. Their argument reverberates and the mortals get caught up in their mischief when a love potion becomes involved; administered by cheeky fairy, Puck.

The acting in this play was of varying levels; the actors who played the young lovers stood out for me as the strongest talents on display here, funny and endearing in parts that are traditionally fairly dull. However, I felt that Oberon and Puck, in particular, were miscast. Lydia Harrison, who played Puck, did not lack talent but her interpretation of the character was far too feminine, Puck is a difficult character to play but in this group of actors I felt that the sexless nature of the fairy would have been better served by casting a boy in the role. James Morgan, who played Oberon, I am sorry to say, rather spoiled the production for me as he seemed to completely lack the talent necessary to read the beautiful lines that Shakespeare wrote for Oberon. The poetry was lost and the power of the character never came through.

This ‘faithful rendition’ failed to inspire, the cast were Ok, some of them funny, although one often felt that was simply down to the genius of Shakespeare rather than anything else. The main problem here was that I felt like I was watching an amateur production, the play wasn’t too bad, it was entertaining at some points but overall the acting seemed too self-conscious and the adaptation too dull. I felt that with a little more direction and some rather better casting, this young cast could have created something that was so much more memorable. As it is I will simply consign this to my memory as another uninspiring Shakespeare play.

C, runs until the 30th August, 3pm. £7.50/£5.50