“So quick bright things come to confusion.”

In a tangled web of deceit, forbidden love and magical confusion, our lovers fight to be with their one true love. Hermia, Helena, Lysander and Demetrius all find themselves at the mercy of Oberon, the Lord of the Fairies, and Puck, his mischievous right hand man, as they wonder through the forest. When all is no longer what it was, and nothing is as it seems, they must find their path to their own happiness.

One of Shakespeare’s finest comedies, A Midsummer Night’s Dream brings magic and mayhem, and the unique outdoor setting is one not to be missed.

In August 2006 Shooting Fish presented an open-air production of A Midsummer Nights Dream as part of the North East Lincolnshire Arts Forum Festival.

An exciting and potent mix of love, magic and comedy combined to create this highly dynamic production of one of Shakespeare’s best-loved plays.

With a cast of ten, the production was an entirely ensemble led piece with no single director. Performed in the unique setting of Grimsby’s Oaklands Hotel gardens, the play was extremely well received selling out on each of its four nights, therefore becoming one of the most successful events of the Festival.

Press review

Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is perhaps one of the hardest of his works to convey authentically. It is hardly his best known work, yet its themes are a revelation to modern sentiments. Love, illusion and a blurring of the boundaries between the real and the imaginary, sanity and insanity are not alien themes to us in 2006, by any means.Last night’s open air premier of Shooting Fish Theatre Company’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream was a revelation to theatregoers. Performed in the perfect setting of Laceby’s Oaklands Hotel garden, the performers were able to thus embrace the raw passion and sheer physicality of the Bard’s language.The athleticism of the performers was outstanding and startling in equal measure, Particular praise should go to Rachel Pratt as the devilish Puck. Her extraordinary physical prowess leant itself perfectly to the role, while her physical expressions were a joy to watch.

Shakespeare’s intermittent doses of humour are often either overdone or underplayed, but the cast used the text brilliantly. The scenes involving Philip Brooks as the foolhardy Bottom were laugh-out-loud comedy – a rare commodity in Shakespeare. In fact, the comic timing was about as accurate as anything I have witnessed by the RSC.Even in the more intensely plot-driven scenes, the use of expression and physical gesture rose the play well above the ordinary. An imperative in Shakespeare is to marry the words inextricably with the plot, and Shooting Fish understand this.The three leads were strong enough to drive the love quadrangle to its climactic final sequence, to my observations without even missing a line. In fact, Emily Bignell as Helena, Jenny Ayres as Hermia, Chris Anstey as Lysander and Darren Bolton as Demetrius were convincing, even energising to watch. And Richard Porter as the majestic Oberon had the natural facial intensity to do the mythical part justice.

Shakespeare rarely gets the treatment it deserves. It sure does here.

Paul Cottam – The Grimsby Telegraph