Magic dust is falling at the Theatre Royal Bath, and I suggest you rush to buy tickets for this short run of Propeller’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream so some of it can rub off on you. This all-male company stir-fries a perfect comedy – and as director Edward Hall describes, produces ‘constructed farce that takes the audience to the edge of hysteria and back.’

Inspired by Puck’s penultimate address to the audience:

Not a mouse

Shall disturb this hallowed house.

I am sent with broom before

To sweep the dust behind the door,

designer Michael Pavelka’s set places the ensuing adventures within an imaginary attic, (for those of us lucky enough to experience one, truly a place of mystery and discovery). The action takes place within a simple tableau of white walls, dust sheets, and a suspended row of white-painted wooden chairs that double as a gangway. From a central spotlit draped box, Robin Goodfellow or Puck (Joseph Chance), bursts out to greet us like a younger, more athletic Grayson Perry figure dressed up to go out on the lash with the Sunderland girls, complete with red and white striped tights and gauze tutu.

So starts a slow-turning tornado of a performance from an ensemble that builds and finally explodes into full power when love is jilted, refused, and finally turned on its head by the mischievous powers of the fairy folk. The antics and confusions of Lysander (Richard Pepper), Demetrius (Arthur Wilson), Helena (David Acton), and in particular Hermia, an effervescent performance by Matthew McPherson, brought this house down. Not just physical knockabout – this was Punch and Judy on acid. Set against these shenanigans, the more severe power battle between Oberon, King of the Fairies (Darryl Brockis) and Titania, Queen of the Fairies (James Tucker) rumbled on reasonably quietly by comparison. I did think that the styling of this Titania made ‘her’ look more like a middle-aged HR manager than the beautiful and seductive nymph one has come to expect from this role, but this was a minor distraction. Some of the best was still to come.

I challenge anyone to find a better ‘Bottom’! (Chris Myles) – Never funnier than when somewhat ruefully recounting his ‘dream’ of the having the attributes, yes those, of a donkey.  The Mechanicals were the best I have seen. Even the Wall (Lewis Hart) managed to invoke gales of laughter at his exit.

Ben Ormorod’s subtle lighting played well on this canvass, adding kinetic and playful energy to the proceedings when it needed it. More magic was elicited by the sound made by the cast on reedy mouthorgans and glockenspiel. And when the smoke and the glitter had finally settled, the audience yelled their appreciation as bawdily as Bottom’s braying, when magicked into the form of an ass.

Simon Bishop