A Shakespeare play at the Globe whose best features have nothing to do with Shakespeare

Back to the Globe after more than a year. The theatre has zealously maintained its pre–Covid staffing levels. On press night, there were eight sentries patrolling the forecourt where just 42 masked spectators watched a revival of Sean Holmes’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The Globe describes his show as ‘raucous’. The action is set in a forest near Athens during the classical era but the text uses 16th-century English. So it seems crazy to add a third time zone but most directors do so unquestioningly.

This modernised production features an array of multicoloured stylings inspired by funfairs and Caribbean carnivals. The palette is a mad rainbow of acid pinks, savage yellows, eye-stabbing greens and brutal scarlets. Several costumes seem to have been made out of Liquorice Allsorts glued to strips of fabric. A few of the garments are attractive, in an over-the-top fashion, but the relentless barrage of colour overwhelms the text of this delicate and absurdly over-complicated drama.