A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Cheltenham Everyman, until Saturday, March 30
If Tweedy the Clown ever asks, ‘Does my Bottom look big in this?’, Katie Jarvis will have no hesitation in agreeing. In this production, his is a wonderful Bottom, as airy as it’s fairy
Hey – you know that scene in a Midsummer Night’s Dream? The one where Bottom gets hopelessly tangled in a striped deckchair? (Haven’t we all. I once went in and immediately out of a hammock in front of a group of high-net-worth tourists in Kenya.)
Anyway, IMHO, probably the most moving scene the Bard has ever written.
Yet! So often bewilderingly cut from productions of this, the most popular of Will’s comedies. (Maybe to be found in the Second Quarto edition? I’m guessing here.)
But brilliant director Paul Milton (as lovely as he’s gifted) not only kept it in. He cast Tweedy the Clown (once Gloucestershire’s; now claimed the world over) as his own Bottom.
(Promise I’ll get tired of this joke at some point.)
And the Bottom he picked turned out to be spot on.
Childish. Sorry.
But true!
And you might think: ‘All very well. But surely Nick Bottom just weaves in and out of the action. How much of Tweedy will I see?’
The answer is: more than a normal amount of Bottom.
Because, honestly, this production – aimed particularly at families; though our lapping-it-up audience was all ages – knows what it’s about. Tweedy is the lynch-pin of the action, as well as the show’s comedy advisor. And it works. Hilariously.
This story – or, rather, overlapping stories - of unrequited love, overbearing fathers, fairies and mischief - is fertile ground for the imagination of (imaginative) directors. But I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a production where the comedy is allowed to run riot in quite the same way. (Who couldn’t adore Laura Noble’s desperately furious Helena, or Oliver Brooks as a sort of Fast Show Lysander.)
I’m not sure we needed quite such bling-y costumes; quite such a confusing set of scenery that tried to mingle the stories as thoroughly as does the plot. (I get the pantomime aspect of the former; but I’m not sure the kids needed it.)
I shouldn’t really single out any of this cast, who worked so hard to take on multiple roles each (apart from Tweedy, who worked like a donkey as just one character); they were wonderful.
There was still some tricky – utterly beautiful – language; some mental gymnastics to keep up with the plot.
And, of course, with Tweedy in the mix, there’s plenty of slapstick, as well as *blushes modestly* the usual, well, things that Bottoms tend to do.
Would it really convince children to go to another Shakespeare? Or would they simply be disappointed when – as Romeo and Juliet lie abed – there’s no sudden bout of flatulence, followed by Tweedy appearing from beneath the covers?
Luckily, I’m seated beside a Gloucestershire theatre great, who thinks about this for a moment. Finally, ‘I think what it will do is this. When that young person is next asked by a parent, a girl-or boyfriend if they’d like to go to the theatre, they’ll simply say ‘yes’.’
Good answer.
True magic at work.
· Everyman Cheltenham, Regent Street, Cheltenham GL50 1HQ;
everymantheatre.org.uk
