The provocation and confrontation inherent in queer (re)imaginings of familiar material is utilised well throughout Ham & Passion. The audience are encouraged to at least acknowledge, if not always overturn their own expectations, and challenged to try to apply a personal logic to the proceedings and their semiotics. What is primal? What is sex? How might masculinity be a performance?

Director Erica Whyman has magic-ed Shakespeare’s Dream into a fast, furious and imaginative fun fiesta. And to judge from this Stratford performance it will radiate national delight as it tours from March, supported by fourteen am-dram companies and armies of children turned into fairies . . . ‘The Dream’ is the play which wins many a young person to Shakespeare and this production, especially if its poetic depth grows in performance, should bring many to the fold.