Award-winning and fabulous Flabbergast are an ensemble who always like to leave a lasting impression. Now, following on from 2022’s bizarre, remarkable and critically acclaimed production of Macbeth, comes this splendidly imaginative show: a fun, frivolous, fantastic and fast-moving celebration of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

And it’s a play that really is a perfect vehicle for a theatre company which, given their name, presumably like to leave their audiences flabbergasted...

Accessible language, likeable characters and a series of comic capers with an ass combine to make Dream one of Shakespeare’s most popular works. For those not familiar with the storyline, young lovers Demetrius and Lysander both fancy Hermia, leaving Helena sitting on the shelf. Meanwhile, the king and queen of the fairies, Oberon and Titania, are up to no good. And as for the mystical and mischievous sprite Puck - well, to put it plainly, she’s got her finger in more pies than Mr Kipling. Add in a group of rude mechanicals and the recipe for success is guaranteed...

As we fast approach the winter solstice, this magical midsummer yarn is a production well worth catching. Sure, this is Shakespeare’s much-loved and oft-performed comedy - but not as we know it, might imagine it or would visualise it. For a start, the action takes place around an old haywain (which is an obsolete word for a large, horse-drawn open vehicle used to carry bails of hay). It’s easy to visualise an Elizabethan touring theatre company arriving in towns and villages in just such a contraption, eager to entertain local folk with their latest theatrical offering.