PRINCIPAL CAST: Lee Boardman (Bottom); Nancy Carroll (Helena); Lisa Ellis (Hermia); Ray Fearon (Oberon); Samantha Spiro (Titania); Ben Turner (Lysander); Orlando Wells (Demetrius).

This production ran from 24 September - 1 November 2003.

"Bowling on a raft of music and colour; leanly spoken, concentrated and clear....There's no fuss but a lot of splash. In the great Christopher Oram's design, a huge pewter moon, fringed all round with thorns, watches over the action like a sad eye....The lovers are in virginal white; Bottom and co (mercifully free of yokelly accents and swaggering mannerisms) are in dun; Titania and Oberon swish around in flame-coloured plumes; the Fairy Queen's bower is plush bright pink and beneath the stage - a My Little Pony hell."  ~ Susannah Clapp, The Observer, 5 October 2003

"Typically for a Michael Grandage production, this is played at almost breathtaking speed - and is all the better for it. Stripped of the familiar frills, what emerges is a much darker fairytale than you might have expected - a rough-edged and raunchy journey into the mind's eye, an image perfectly captured by Chris Oram's strikingly simple but extremely effective lunar design. There is also a delightful use of light and colour as this other world provides a technicolour explosion into the monochrome reality of Athenian court life....It is not just Titania and Oberon - played with exciting sexual chemistry by Samantha Spiro and Ray Fearon - who have their mortal counterparts, even the Athenian workmen have their place in the central dream, reappearing as the fairy queen's surprisingly sinister attendants."  ~ John Highfield, The Stage, 9 October 2003