REVIEW: Why Chichester Festival Theatre's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream is bonkers

‘It’s completely bonkers’ observed one regular theatre-goer as he departed the CFT.

But this one-line critique was said with warmth and affection.

Over the centuries the Bard’s greatest works have been endlessly reinterpreted – reimagined in modern settings before purists have pursued a more ‘traditional’ approach.

This latest reawakening of the Dream starts with the unlikely reminder of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act of 1994 which was designed to outlaw raves in public places by banning music comprising a succession of repetitive beats.

Who would have thought that this rather sombre footnote from modern political history would set the scene for one of the funniest adaptations of a Midsummer Night ever to grace a modern stage.

It is unashamedly local too. The woods of the fairies’ rave are Kingley Vale. Chichester and the South Downs are the backdrop, referenced in every scene.

And thanks to rapier sharp editing and acting which bursts with energetic mischief, this production bounces along at 125 miles per hour with the courage and resilience of a police car rushing to a public emergency.

All the boring bits seem to have gone – or perhaps they flashed by so fast they suddenly seemed interesting. I wasn’t counting the lines. But rest assured all the favourite moments from the Shakespeare script are there and delivered with perfection. Not least the final play within a play – this time performed by representatives from the local Conservative Party, linking back to the legislation which opens the show.

Bonkers? Well of course it is. But then, so was Shakespeare’s original. Let’s not deceive ourselves otherwise. At its heart it’s about four young lovers and a group of actors who get lost in a magical forest controlled by feuding fairies.

Escaping lovers, magic flower juice that has every unlikely combination of players falling in love with each other … quite apart from an actor called Bottom having his head turned into that of a donkey. Not everyday life.

So co-directors Justin Audibert and Hannah Joss have pitched it just right. Shakespeare has never been more accessible.

Strangely too, this production in its soul and spirit is probably more authentic than most worthy productions. This captures the bawdiness and gender blindness that would have been the hallmark of the very first stagings in Elizabethan England.

The role of Nick Bottom is enduring comedy gold. A joy then to have Munya Chawawa extracting every possible laugh with the thoroughness of a deranged dentist who intends to leave no tooth remaining.

If this had been performed in the 1990s, half the audience would have walked at the point that a portrait of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was defaced.

Today everyone remained rooted in their seats.

Times have changes, attitudes have evolved, theatre’s boundaries continue to be redrawn. But I rather think that Shakespeare would have loved this every bit as much as the audience appeared to do.

It’s a dream of a play.