A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Review – Leeds Playhouse

By Hazel Davis, February 2026

It’s really hard bringing a fresh take to something that’s all fresh takes. Puck’s a punk, Puck’s a girl (to be fair most of the Puck’s I’ve seen have been girls), Puck’s an alien, Puck’s a dog, Puck’s French. Anyway, I was suspicious when I saw him sitting on a dining table silently eating a banana in a tutu and coat tails. Oh no, not this again. But once he looked up with his Joker makeup and smiled, my fears melted away.

If you don’t know the story, Helena loves Demetrius, he doesn’t love her back, Lysander loves Hermia, Hermia loves him back. But Hermia’s father (Theseus) wants her to marry Demetrius not Lysander. All fine. Anyway they all run away to escape. While they’re in the woods, the naughty Puck puts spells on them all so both boys fall in love with Hermia, and so on.

Aaaaanyway. This production – from Leeds Playhouse, Shakespeare’s Globe and Headlong, with Bristol Old Vic – rips up the rulebook once again. I know they say that every time but they did this time (I can’t spoil the ending but let’s just say you need to keep an open mind).

Hedydd Dylan as Hippolyta, Tiwa Lade as Hermia and David Olaniregun as Lysander

“Electric”

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a licence to have a forest, magical music and dream sequences. This is a stark black and white Kubrick-inspired set with shiny floors and sleek hairdos. It’s all horror themes and menacing music. It’s a risk to meddle with everyone’s expected whimsy but it really pays off here.

Hermia (Tiwa Lade) and Lysander (David Olaniregun) make a lovely couple and you really root for them. Lade’s comic timing is excellent and her acting naturalistic. But poor old Helena (Tara Tijani) is cast aside by Demetrius, played brilliantly and manically by the James Acaster-like Lou Jackson. The foursome are engaging and pleasant to watch. Tijani’s Helena is angry rather than piteous but the chemistry between her and Demetrius is electric.

Against this competent backdrop and against Hedydd Dylan’s passionate Hyppolita/Titania, Michael Marcus’s Theseus/Oberon is a bit of a let-down, his acting a bit shouty and his eyebrow raising a bit more Brush Strokes than King of the Fairies. Back to Puck. Sergo Vares was naughty and arch and a little bit menacing. I was totally enthralled.

Hedydd Dylan as Titania, Michael Marcus as Oberon.

“Hilarious”

Bottom (another of those “Oh whatever will they do next?” characters) could have gone either way. He’s usually a pitiful character, made to look (literally) an ass and humiliated in the forest. When the spell has worn off and Titania reminds him how repulsive he is we are supposed to feel repulsion for the poor fool. But Danny Kirrane (the star of the show) handled the role just brilliantly, with excellent comic timing and hilarious asides, dropping “Jesus Christ”s and “this is a sh*thole” in here and there in a way that didn’t feel like it was just for the sake of being down with the youth. He was so good I was irritated at Titania for not fancying him, despite my 13-year-old whispering, “I bet he was really annoying in rehearsals though”.

It would be remiss of me to say anything about the ending other than I bet Shakespeare would have bloody loved it. Brace yourself, though, I’m guessing not everyone will.

‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ is at Leeds Playhouse until 28th February
images: Helen Murray

Hazel Davis( Writer )

Hazel Davis lives in West Yorkshire and has been a journalist for most of the UK national newspapers and many magazines, cutting her teeth on a classical music magazine. She’s the lead singer in a country band (Mustard County), plays trumpet in a wind band and big band and cornet in a brass band. When she’s not playing music or writing about it, she’s usually thinking about it.

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