“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” at the Globe Theatre
Maryam Philpott on the South Bank
★★★★☆
3 May 2026
A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Shakespeare’s Globe each year is as inevitable as the inclement weather that is sure to afflict multiple performances in this spring and summer season. But this 2026 production has a little more magic than usual with director Emily Lim’s sunny meadows meets colourful disco carnival production bringing new joys to the play, most notably in the physical interactions that transform the Globe space and its audience into the Athenia wood. Breaking the fourth wall is part of the mission statement for this venue but rarely do the enchanted groundlings get to become the wall itself in the Players’ clever interpretation of the Pyramus and Thisbe tragedy.
Michael Grady-Hall as Puck.
Photo credit: Helen Murray.
In fact, it is audience interaction that underscores many elements of Lim’s clever adaptation while never detracting from Shakespeare’s farcical tale of mortals and fairies being led astray in the forest as they search for true love. Drawing the audience in as the Athenian masses is a nice touch and several members of the crowd seated at all levels of the Globe are assigned non-speaking roles in the mechanicals’ play, an unsuspecting civilian named Peter becomes the object of Puck’s affection when he accidentally anoints himself with the flower meant for Demetrius and Lysander (a thoughtful running joke) while everyone standing in the Yard is encouraged to link arms to form that vital wall through which the blighted Pyramus and Thisbe peer. Managed predominantly by Michael Grady-Hall’s emcee Puck, Lim’s approach to audience engagement is both successful and inclusive.
Michael Grady-Hall as Puck.
Often in productions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the company choose to emphasize one of the three storylines over the others, making it either primarily magical, about love or highly comic, but one of the great achievements of Lim’s approach is to hold all three narrative strands – fairies, lovers, and mechanicals – in harmonious balance and the production is all the richer for it. With reworked folk-inspired songs written for the production using the fairies’ verse by Jim Fortune and country dance choreography by James Cousins, it evokes a strong sense of the natural world in full bloom at the height of spring and the illusion remains during the interval as the actors forgo their rest so the errant lovers can chase each other through the theatre and its environs while Puck entertains the rest, a nice touch, a suspension of our disbelief held until the story resumes.
Adrian Richards joins Hammed Animashaun from the Bridge Theatre’s 2019 production as one of the most memorable interpretations of Bottom in recent years, here played as an exuberant theatre luvvie desperate to play all the roles and dressed in uniform paisley scarf and musicals fan t-shirt – current productions of Hamilton and Cats may appreciate the free publicity while the little Hercules costume reference will not go unnoticed by theatre fans. Romaya Weaver is particularly good as lovelorn Helena who deserves her happy ending while Jamal Franklin is an adorable Snug trying to conquer his inner cowardly lion. But the star of the show proves to be Tumi Olufawo, a Globe cover who seamlessly steps in with script in hand due to cast illness as Quince and triumphs in the role.
In Lim’s entertaining approach there are plenty of crowd-pleasing moments in a version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream that also celebrates the text, offering an enchanting new perspective on the play.
