At the rear Ben Thornton as Simon, Joe Feeney as Tom, with kneeling Tricia Adele-Turner as Phyllida and under the Ass's head, willing to give it a go Dave, played by Sam Rabone. Pictures: Pamela Raith

The Pocket Drea

Lichfield Garrick

****

Some of the greatest names of theatre, titans gracing the highest panoply of the Thespian art, have graced Shakespeare’s celebrated comedy of A Midsummer Night’s Dream . . . then, lower down the scale, much lower, there is the David Garrick Strolling Players stuttering, sorry, strutting their stuff at the Lichfield Garrick.

Or, they would have been strutting had not the somewhat over theatrical and overbearing Phyllida, self styled leading lady, given her unwanted leading advice on the art of acting to the rest of the cast who were now several hours, pints and G&Ts into a protest meeting at The George around the corner.

So. in the spirit of the show must go on, unfortunately, as it turns out in this case, we have Phyllida, and the other remaining actor, Simon, actor being used in the loosest sense of the word here, along with the headphone clad, overworked, stage manager, Jo, in traditional backstage black, with more and more management required for what was less and less to manage.

Add a stagehand, Dave, willing and . . . well not exactly able, to be honest, but certainly willing to turn his hand to anything stageward, and, from the audience, Tom, a libidinous PE teacher and Phyllida’s ex, who seems to follow the thoughts and guidance of his groin through life.

And then there is Felix, the theatre’s front of house manager, who is the most determined the show must go on, a noble sentiment not so much to honour Thespian tradition as more to avoid giving anyone their money back.

So, the scene is set for two actors, sort of, and four odds and sods, to play 18 parts, and even that is the economy version as Shakespeare had 24 characters . . . just saying.

Arthur Bostrom's Felix adds a touch of glitz to the dream - Shakespeare had never heard of Irving Berlin apparently but that's no reason not to include There's no business like show business in A Midsummer Night's Dream . . . is there?

The result is a sort of Midsummer Night’s . . . well nightmare really, not quite classical Shakespeare or the RSC, more The Play That Goes Wrong, Noises Off and even a touch of the Carry Ons. In short, laugh a minute, gloriously daft fun.

Technically it is an example of meta-theatre, which is posh for putting on a play within a play, or in this case a play within a play within a play if we count the rude mechanicals and their rendition of Pyramus and Thisbe in the play that is in the play that is in the . . . do try to keep up.

Which means you have a real actor playing the part of the pretend actor  playing the part of the . . . it gets complicated. Thus, we have Ben Thornton as Simon who is out to impress a casting director in the audience, that’s Simon, not Ben who is trying, and there is no casting agent, just so we are clear. He, that's Ben, gives us a wonderfully incompetent Simon and his performance as the fairy Cobweb is a figure to behold . . . that, along with his noble(ish) Theseus and rustic Peter Quince.

Ben has an extensive CV taking in Shakespeare, national tours and the West End but is perhaps best known in these parts as a star of the Garrick panto for the past five years where his partner in crime is Sutton Coldfield’s Sam Rabone, in his first Shakespeare (sort of) since he was at school. Sam has a decade of damehood at Garrick pantos behind him and gives us a lovely enthusiastic Dave bumbling his way through lover boy Lysander and the pushy comic character Nick Bottom.

Sarah Twomey is a delightful, if small . . . just saying . . . Jo, with a list of no no demands as part of her agreement for appearing as Puck and Hermia. Puck involving flying on a dodgy rig held by a rope knocked up by Dave (it wasn’t really, it was proper theatre kit, but where is the jeopardy in that?) while Hermia had to be unsnogged . . . don’t ask.

Sam Rabone as Dave playing Pyramus with Joe Feeney as Tom playing Thisbe with Sarah Twomey as the Wall

Joe Feeney displayed all the acting ability of a rutting stag as Tom, the gym teacher with his hands on approach to physical education with what appears to be a sideline in conducting seminars in carnal knowledge. He is the lover boy Demetrius, who is lusted after by Helena but is betrothed to Hermia who loves Lysander, who will give it a go, whatever it is.

Joe was the wonderful baddy Luke Backinanger in last year’s Garrick Panto and has Shakespeare productions in his CV as does Tricia Adele-Turner, another with a West End CV who plays (take dramatic stance, Pre-Raphaelite style) Phyllida who in turn plays Hippolyta, Titania and, just to make the course of true love run out of control, Helena. Tricia is no stranger to the play, or in this case the play it is supposed to be, having been in a touring production of Shakespeare’s celebrated comedy.

Then we have Felix played by Arthur Bostrom, still fondly remembered as Crabtree in ‘Allo, ‘Allo, but with much more to has bow including Shakespeare, done proper, like what Bill wrote.

The result is . . . well, mayhem hardly covers it. We have fights, Tom trying to win back Phyllida, to put it mildly, Felix starting to take to this acting lark, Dave having the time of his life, Jo rather being anywhere else and with a flying harness that would make a thong seem roomy, Phyllida losing her Shakespearean cool in a catfight with Jo and Simon prancing round as a fairy to impress the casting director.

Throw in panto style audience participation at the end (don’t sit at the end of a row on the left hand side . . . you have been warned) and this might not be the classic Shakespeare production you might have been promised, but it does have more laughs than a 16th century tale of Athenian nobles, love triangles, or even quadrangles, and fairy kings and queens and stuff.

Written by Sandy Toksvig, who played Jo in the original 1992 production, hence the references to Jo, and her diminutive size, and children’s and comedy writer Ellie Brewer, this Garrick in house production has a lovely set from the theatre’s regular designer John Brooking beautifully lit by Aidi Barnes.

The set also pays tribute to perhaps the most dangerous movie stunt ever which involved Buster Keaton in his 1928 film Steamboat Bill, Jr – one to look up and be amazed - CGI will never match it!

It ends with Jo as Robin Goodfellow, Puck's Sunday name, reciting Puck's closing lines of the original as the lights dim to leave her in a single spot wishing "So, good night unto you all. Give me your hands, if we be friends, And Robin shall restore amends."

Directed by the Garrick’s CEO and artistic director Daniel Buckroyd, The Pocket Dream will be mangling A Midsummer Night’s Dream to May 3.

Roger Clarke

29-04-25

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