Puppetry of the fairy band

A chill spring day in Stratford for the RSC’s launch of its summer comedies season with a new Midsummer Night’s Dream from Gregory Doran. A production to warm the heart? Certainly, for how could any half-competent staging fail to do so, and anything directed by Doran is usually rather better than that. But where so many are constantly beating a path through the Athenian forest, it’s a task of tasks to find anything new to say. On this score he chalks up few points. On the other hand, there’s perhaps some relief that no alien concept has been imposed, no abhorrent substructure excavated, no relevance insisted upon.

A startling beginning will do very well. A snatch of Mendelssohn’s famous music is savagely crunched, immediately banishing any Victorian sentimentality about the piece. On the polished black granite surface of the stage, two masked gladiators are slugging it out in mortal combat.