A Midsummer Night’s Dream- Globe 2026

By William Shakespeare

Directed by Emily Lin
Designed by Aldo Vazquez
Costume concept by Fly Davies
Composer- Jim Fortune
Choreographer- James Cousins

Shakespeare’s Globe
Thursday 21st May 2026, 14.00

CAST
Enyio Okoronkwo- Oberon / Theseus
Audrey Brisson – Titania / Hippolyta
Michael Grady-Hall- Puck
Gareth Kennerley- Egeus / Flute / Peasebottom

Sophie Cox – Hermia / Fairy
Romaya Weaver – Helena / Fairy
Mel Lowe- Lysander / Fairy
Gavi Singh Chera- Demetrius / Fairy

Adrian Richards – Bottom
Victoria Moseley – Quince / Fairy
Jamal Franklin -Snug / Cobweb
Em Prendergast- Snout / Mustardseed
Tumi Olufawo – Moth / Ensemble
Jason Battersby – Fairy / Ensemble

MUSIC
Illona Soumalainen – accordion
Richard Henry- MD / Tuba
Saleem Raman – percussion
Piotr Jordan – violin
Sally Simpson – viola

So here I am at my 25th version of The Dream since I started this site. So what’s new? A female Lysander stands out in the cast list, which like all Globe lists of creatives and cast is annoyingly alphabetical. The deputy director of costumes comes before the director. Silly. I do my own, the director comes first. The cast come in blocks for me. A female Quince seems a majority choice nowadays. I noted the five star reviews. I’ve seen a few five star Dreams – to get that against the competition, it has to be phenomenal.

It’s only six months since The Globe did the play in the Wanamaker Playhouse. The Globe site makes much of seeing it on a starry night (Night? Geddit?), but I opted for afternoon when in sunshine The Globe comes into its own.

There’s a good interview with the director, Emily Lin, in the programme. She talks about her first experience of theatre being pantomime and how it created love of theatre. Yes, me too. She wants to bring that to the Globe. Absolutely right. Large middle-school parties of kids. Tourists who are curious. People seeing Shakespeare for the first time. I thought this year’s Globe programme is much what I would do: Romeo & Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, Love’s Labour’s Lost, As You Like It. (The Artistic Director also casts herself in Mother Courage, but that’s not one I’d choose or go to). Next year I’d switch to Twelfth Night, A Comedy of Errors and Two Gentlemen of Verona. It’s what works in the situation. I’d run the Wanamaker all year, and put the tragedies and difficult plays in there.

Twenty minutes before the start: the set
The fountain is the Mannekenn Pis from Brussels. My dad had a brass copy he found there in 1945.

It has more audience participation and involvement than any serious production I’ve seen. There’s a sign up for auditions for ‘The Pat Pat Players’ twenty minutes before the start. Victoria Moseley as Quince is seated at a director’s chair. Audience members are led up to read pieces (there was so much going on they couldn’t be heard, but props included a red rose for Romeo and Yorick’s skull for Hamlet).

Others stand behind Adrian Richards (Bottom) and follow him in dancing to drum and trombone. Out in the standing area, Gareth Kennerly as Flute leads a singalong. It’s glorious shambolic and cheerful.

The play hasn’t even started, but the fun has. I don’t expect to see new ideas, but I was wrong. The actual play begins with Hermia and Helena duetting on a folk song. That emphasis their girlhood friendship.

It runs two hours twenty-five minutes including the interval, so a short version, but within that there’s much additional audience work, and several songs.

Then Theseus and Hippolyta appear, and we understand why the wedding is urgent: Hippolyta is very pregnant. Another new one.

*Sophie Cox as Hermia, Mel Lowe as Lysander*

I don’t understand why they cast a female as Lysander. Possibly her superb singing voice? Songs are important. She can also do an acrobatic forward roll. She’s dressed in male clothes and has short hair. Is it gender blind? Does it suggest her passion for Hermia is lesbian? Is she trans? It ceases to matter very soon, Was there a point to it or not?

*Mel Lowe as Lysander, Romaya Weaver as Helena, Sophie Cox as Hermia*

Costume are thought out. Theseus is in shining crimson with a train, and Hippolyta is in shining gold. Egeus is in a dark three piece suit, the four lovers are in modern dress, or rather a brighter version. This will be “Athenian garb” later. Helena in mini skirt to accentuate her height, and Hermia in a calf-length skirt are immediately differentiated. Lysander and Demetrius are definitely much brighter than normal even for Southwark, but it’s modern dress.

I particularly liked Snug and Flute’s hats. They come from a shop in Dirty Lane a few hundred yards away. I’ve got a green one!

*Adrian Richards as Bottom, Em Prendergast as Snout, Victoria Moseley as Quince, Jamal Franklin as Snug, Gareth Kennerley as Flute.*

There was a major added piece after the Rude Mechanicals aka Pat Pat players did the casting. Then after they had cast Pyramus, Thisbe and Snout and Snug, they decided that Wall would be the audience linking arms with the chink in the wall being two widely separated groundlings, who were next to the two extended walkways. Bottom had the audience demonstrating the roar that Lion couldn’t manage. Then came the real pantomime moment when the casting continued. They had audience names, e.g. Mark from New Zealand and Margaret from Beverley, called them out, got the person to wave, and then cast them in new roles. Thisbe’s aunt, Thisbe’s poodle, Ninus’s tomb.

*Into the forest, Audrey Brisson as Titania holding the child*

The forest of Arden sees coloured flowers drop over the set, brilliant colours, and all dancing fairies. Spectacular. A change with a bang or rather BANG! The pregnant Hippolyta transformed into the child centred Titania is notable. There was a lot of dance. Just about everyone had to be a fairy.

*Audrey Brisson as Titania, Enyio Okoronkwo as Oberon*

Adrian Richards was a fine Bottom, with much crowd-pleasing jiggling dance, but that isn’t an innovation. He had two extended fairy scenes after his transformation into an ass, with seven or eight fairies. All very funny.

*Bottom’s costume, a coat of silver petals was a new one too*

I was worried when I saw Puck was being played as the comic figure running audience interaction. The Globe has gone overboard before in having an improvising clown, notably in The Winter’s Tale, where it was embarrassingly bad. Not here.

Michael Grady-Hall, an RSC regular, carries it off perfectly. He never goes Over The Top, but he adds so much. He first appears, looks at the Mannekan Pis peeing and stops it with a wave of the hand. He can conduct the audience into doing whatever he says. Choral Aaah-ing, hand waving.

*Michael Grady-Hall: The audience is in the palm of his hand*

The best for me was when Puck inadvertently squirts the love juice / potion into his own eyes, which he covers for a while, blundering about, and we know it’ll be an audience member he sees first. In our show it was Joel. That joke carries through the rest of the play with Joel being brought on stage.

We got to the interval, and the four lovers were running around the courtyard, by the shops, along the corridor past the toilets, shouting out the name of the one they were looking for, and asking for directions. No interval for those four. Bottom was looking for Joel as they got close to restart.

*Gavi Singh Chera as Demetrius, Romaya Weaver as Helena*

The lovers were good. Romaya Weaver as Helena was outstanding in a very good cast. Sophia Cox as Hermia’s fight with her added a new element too. Leg biting. They looked a great contrast to each other. It all worked smoothly. Peter Brooks defined the physicality of the scene in 1969, and that’s how it’s always done. Great.

*Tying the knot. Jason Battersby (ensemble) with Mel Lowe and Sophie Cox*

They do the weddings of the Duke and Hippolyta, and the four lovers (another addition). Before the Pyramus and Thisbe play all assemble in new costumes for the triple wedding. An (alleged) audience member is brought up to conduct it. Puck brought Joel on stage to tie the knot with him too.

*Victoria Moseley as Quince introduces the play*

The Pyramus and Thisbe play was excellent. I think Flute playing Thisbe should be bearded, and he was.

*Victoria Moseley as Quince, an audience member as moon, Jamal Franklin as Lion*

Margaret from Beverley was led up to be moon (with a fabulous costume) and the man from Hungary had to be Ninus’s tomb in a cloak. We had Wall, but the chinks remained in the audience with Thisbe on one walkway, Pyramus on the other. Watch out for a surprise Bottom / Quince moment at the end. It happens like that in amateur theatrical companies.

The programme lists a lot of songs as well as an article by Sam Lee on folk song. Some are traditional, like The Water Is Wide, some are new by Jim Fortune. I was glad to see they were listed in the programme. There was a dilemma here. What with the open air and the band, the vocal volume was just a little too low. Authenticity prevailed and they didn’t mic them. There comes a point with singing where you really need to. They used a hand mic for the (alleged) audience member brought up to conduct the weddings. Incidentally, they had to deal with the lowest and longest helicopter hovering I’ve seen over the Globe, and coped with it. I’m sure some idiot says, ‘That’s the Globe. Let’s go down and look.’ I hope they report it to Air Traffic Control who should know the perpetrator, though they most often seem to be the Police. There’s always some, but this was very low and very loud.

The costumes were colourful and impressive, a long way from the Globe’s pick your own ragbag of a few years ago. The final song and curtain call saw the cast changed into their own clothes (or more probably a costume designer selected “own clothes”) again to bring us sharply out of the theatre situation, and they lead the audience in a singalong with panto drop down word sheet.

It got a few five star reviews. For fulfilling its purpose in the open air on a sunny afternoon, that’s fair. I agree. Domenic Cavendish gave it three in The Telegraph, comparing it to Butlins. Come off it, Domenic, I bet you’ve never been nearer to Butlins than a TV episode of Hi-de-Hi. Ringo Starr started at Butlins. They used to have a repertory theatre of three whodunits or farces in a week, which gave many actors their first paid jobs. I thought that Butlins remark was snotty, but he was right in mentioning a lack of mystery and magic.You wouldn’t go for the verse either, as so much was cut and not a great deal of attention given to what survived. It was never badly done, just that was a long way from the focus.

I’m going for four stars, **** . A high four stars.

It’s on until August 29th. Sporadically, as is the Globe’s system in the summer. OK, it’s not King Lear at the RSC, but it IS a great afternoon’s entertainment. Karen didn’t come with me. She looked at the photo gallery. She wants to see it and we’ll try again later in the season. I could happily watch it several times.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAID

five star
Sunday Mirror *****
The Reviews Hub *****
All That Dazzles *****
West End Best Friend *****

Four star
Miriam Gillinson, The Guardian ***
Theo Bosanquet, What’s On Stage ****
Dominic Maxwell, The Times ****
Sarah Hemmings, Financial Times ****
Nick Curtis, The Standard ****
Andrzj Lukowski, Time Out ****
Holly O’Mahoney, The Stage ****
Rachel Halliburton, Arts Desk ****

Three star
Domenic Cavendish, The Telegraph ***

LINKS ON THIS BLOG

MICHAEL GRADY-HALL
Twelfth Night, RSC, 2025 (Feste)
Venice Preserved by Thomas Otway, RSC 2019
The Shoemaker’s Wife, RSC 2015
All’s Well That Ends Well, RSC, 2013
As You Like It, RSC, 2013
Hamlet, RSC 2013
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, RSC 2011
The City Madam, RSC 2011
Cardenio, RSC 2011