“Are we all here?” As Quince asks the inaugural question, the line lands with an arch, modern self-awareness. As the performance begins in the lingering late-June daylight, the audience remains fully visible under the ambient lighting yet is asked to stare directly into a staged “invisibility”.
In his seminal book Anatomy of Criticism, Northrop Frye posits the concept of the “Green World”, a chaotic, metamorphic natural space where the constraints of the “civilised” world are dissolved and re-ordered. To stage A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre is to engage in a meta-theatrical loop where this Green World is physically inhabited.
One can think of the Athenian woods as a purely whimsical faerie playground. Banerjee channels Jan Kott’s darker, mid-century reading of the play from Shakespeare Our Contemporary, viewing the forest as an unhinged psychological space where identity is destabilized and animalistic impulses are stripped bare. This is felt most acutely in the reimagined quartet of lovers. Misia Butler’s Lysander is delightfully, agonizingly overwrought, leaning into voice cracks and a deranged, desperate energy that captures the absurdity of magically induced infatuation. Opposite him, Hiftu Quasem’s Hermia embraces a visceral, clawing physical comedy during the confrontation and chase with Helena over the changed affection of their lovers. The performance is deserving of what is now probably one of Shakespeare’s most quoted lines: “Though she be but little she is fierce.”
The real emotional anchor of the subplot is Mary Malone’s Helena. Malone infuses the character’s chronic insecurity with an extraordinary, resonant pathos that completely recontextualises her early line: “Love looks not with the eye, but with the mind; and therefore is wing’d Cupid painted blind.” Her chemistry with Terique Jarrett’s consistently assured, exasperated Demetrius is convincing. When Helena begs Demetrius to “use me as your spaniel,” Malone drops to her knees in a playful gesticulation that nevertheless bites with psychological desperation.
The production’s most triumphant conceptual masterstroke lies with the Mechanicals, anchored by a fiercely charming, fan-favourite performance from D/deaf actor Nadeem Islam as Nick Bottom. Islam’s performance is reliant on hyper-expressive slapstick and British Sign Language, which the rest of the troupe, particularly Gordon-Anderson’s doting Quince, integrate into their staging. When Bottom is transformed into an ass, wearing a literal blue furry donkey head and braying with a startlingly equine vocalization, the production hints at a deeper existential isolation that is compelling to watch. At the climax of the Mechanicals’ play, in which a heartbroken Pyramus draws his sword and stabs himself, he takes an agonizingly long, melodramatic time to die (which Nadeem Islam milks for every single laugh).
The faeries act as an on-stage live band, providing interludes that represent the crossing of mortal and immortal realms. At its best, Maimuna Memon’s sound design functions beautifully to represent magic (the effects of love-in-idleness), emotion, and weather all at once. The best example would be the echoing, over-amplified arguments between fabulous disco-king Oberon (Olivier Huband) and Rainsford’s equally fabulous rockstar Titania (Jenny Rainsford) which start in shouting and end in ballad. Their voices blends in beautifully with the forest’s mystique.
However, Banerjee frequently allows the music to hijack the play’s narrative momentum. Soliloquies are unnecessarily stretched into full-length musical numbers; it takes Rainsford’s Titania an absolute age to finally fall asleep because an entire ballad must be cleared first. Too often, the music feels less like an organic extension of the text and more like an artificial injection of adrenaline designed to compensate for a pacing that occasionally sags on Naomi Dawson’s stark, brutalist set of unadorned wooden steps.
Tomás Palmer’s costume design is a jarring, eclectic scattergun of aesthetics: a chaotic melange of furry jackets, modern streetwear, hipster overalls, and ensembles inspired by a cottagecore Pinterest board without a clear unifying theme. When Oberon announces “I am invisible” and casually slips on a pair of colourful sunglasses, the audience’s laughter is guaranteed, but it hints at a production throwing ideas at the hedge to see what sticks.
Finally, the effervescent Georgia Bruce’s Puck serves as the perfect emblem for the production as a whole: childish yet wiser than most, deadpan yet tongue-in-cheek, and infinitely energetic, running at full speed from the top of the audience seating to the stage and literally rolling down the steps every time Titania utters a changing of the seasons. They do Robin Goodfellow justice as the glue of the production.
Ultimately, the success of this Midsummer Night’s Dream depends entirely on what you demand from the Green World. If you require a tightly unified directorial vision, where every costume choice, pop-culture nod, and musical interlude locks into a singular thematic thesis, Atri Banerjee’s production will frustrate. It is an undeniable aesthetic grab-bag, routinely trading Shakespeare’s structural symmetry and narrative stakes for immediate, episodic energy.
This production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream is an uneven tapestry that doesn’t always know what it wants to say, but it’s an immensely entertaining night. Atri Banerjee has assembled a staggeringly talented, wonderfully diverse cast who breathe vibrant, modern life into these centuries-old archetypes.
Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre
Written by William Shakespeare
Directed by Atri Banerjee
Music designed by Rachel Barnes
Set designed by Naomi Dawson
Movement directed by Anjali Mehra
Running time: 2 hrs 40 mins including 20-minute interval
Photo credit: Marc Brenner
Until: 18th July 2026