Dream of a show
Bridge Theatre
One of the Bridge Theatre’s greatest hits is back for a summer run. Nicholas Hytner’s immersive, gender fluid production brings out all the fun (and some darkness) of Shakespeare’s drug-fuelled, sex mad comedy about feuding fairies and hapless humans. It first played the Bridge to much acclaim in 2019.
[Links to full reviews are included but a number are behind paywalls and therefore may not be accessible]
Reviews from 2025
5 stars ★★★★★
The Telegraph’s Dominic Cavendish returned and found ‘The success here is to make a proven delight – the finest Dream I’ve seen – stir wonder again; even if you’re re-encountering the show, it still seems fresh and strange, a shared reverie you never want to end.’ He gave a detailed list of why it’s so good which included: ‘The space works like some hallucinogenic kaleidoscope; locations emerge through the floor and then, in the twinkling of an eye, submerge.’
The Standard’s Nick Curtis was another critic who welcomed it back: ‘It’s beautifully staged and acted, thought provoking, technically brilliant, and ends up with a party. Seriously, what’s not to like?…I can’t remember enjoying a Dream more.’ Debbie Gilpin at BroadwayWorld felt ‘Hytner and his cast and creatives have found a way of bottling pure joy’.
4 stars ★★★★
Time Out’s Andrzej Lukowski said , ‘the new actors are bloody great and the show remains a hoot.’ Kate Wyver at The Guardian observed, ‘Nicholas Hytner’s rollicking production of Shakespeare’s great comedy feasts on bawdy mischief and aerial antics.’
Katie Chambers for The Stage described the ‘kinetic set from Bunny Christie, bathed in green and amorous purple by Bruno Poet’s lighting. Lovers scamper through a forest of ivy-covered bunk beds.’ Julia Rank of LondonTheatre said, ‘It’s a play in which the whimsical and the serious intertwine and joy prevails.’
The Times’ Dominic Maxwell asked, ‘Will you feel much? I doubt it. Will you be too taken with the near-constant sense of expectations being monkeyed with to worry about that? I suspect so.’
Reviews from 2019
5 stars ★★★★★
The Telegraph’s Dominic Cavendish couldn’t have been happier: ‘combining eroticism and enchantment, levity and darkness, Hytner’s latest hit scales the heights.’ Henry Hitchings for The Standard was just as enthusiastic: ‘Poking fun at the vogue for immersive theatre while also embracing the genre’s potential for frenetic playfulness and immediacy, it’s funny, sexy and romantic.’
Kate Kellaway at The Observer went even further: ‘when, at the end, large moon balloons are tossed into the crowd, it seems the party will go on forever. I found myself calculating: five stars might not be enough. How about throwing in an extra moon?’
4 stars ★★★★
Time Out’s Andrzej Lukowski described it as ‘messy, sprawling and quite glorious’. Paul Taylor at The Independent called it a ‘gloriously funny, immersive take on A Midsummer Night’s Dream’.
The Times’ Dominic Maxwell had a great time: ‘I am, most of all, having a lot of fun at Nicholas Hytner’s immersive, irreverent, spectacular, slyly feminist, sometimes properly dreamlike staging of Shakespeare’s summer special. Beds rise up through the floor, characters hop between them or fall through them, fairies fly above us.’
3 stars ★★★
The Guardian’s Michael Billington had reservations, calling it a ‘delirious party, I would have enjoyed it still more if it released the microscopic beauties of Shakespeare’s text as well as the play’s comic energy.’
Saying ‘This is hardly as radical as it seems to want to position itself’, Mark Shenton for LondonTheatre nevertheless called it ‘fast and fluid, fun and occasionally surprising’.
Critics’ Average Rating (2025) 4.4★
Value rating 63 (Value rating is the Average Critic Rating divided by the typical ticket price.)
A Midsummer Night’s Dream can be seen at the Bridge Theatre until 20 August 2025 Buy tickets directly from the theatre
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