So much average

Great Film overall

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Unsalted, humorless, and without a charm, this is mind-bogglingly the work of professionals from the BBC. Line by line, the actors strangle the life out of one of the bard's most accessible yet most wild and original plays. The lovers aren't in love, the dreamer Bottom has no insides with which to dream, Hippolyta and Theseus are soporific and some of the fairies have cheaply synthesized voices. Believe it. Any time, money or talent captured by this film seems to have gone into production design. A few sources (including reviewers here) mention the production's use of the Old Masters' paintings for tableaux vivants in the scenes. If they had just made a nice, corny little series of staged paintings, instead of trying to glue the paintings on to a Shakespeare play, I wouldn't be wondering, thirty years later, why the director Elijah Moshinsky has such contempt for the art of acting, or even the proper use of glue.

Let me say first of all that this is easily my favourite of all Shakespeare's plays. The way that it interweaves the fantastical and the real is exceptional. But this production did not do it the credit that it deserves.There were a lot of good things here. All Shakespearean productions seem to have at least one actor who doesn't seem at home with the language. It looked for a while as if this one would get away from that. Unfortunately, Puck's entrance kind of spoiled this for me, and as he is a major player it was doubly disappointing. He was totally miscast, and some of his better known lines were almost painful.Having Titania's bed chamber looking like a Rubens painting was a great touch - to say nothing of Titania herself, who, played by Helen Mirren, was outstanding. Making her attendants so numerous and so young was also excellent - in theory. But again, none of them (in their, admittedly few, speaking parts) seemed in any way comfortable with the language. I realise that Shakespeare can't be easy for 10-year-olds, but surely they could have done a little better.The sets were also a disappointment, the forests clearly being indoors and the puddles therein being miraculously free of mud. I don't know what would have been wrong with just shooting that part outdoors.It must be a tough production to get right. There were certainly some good things there, but some unnecessarily bad ones as well. I enjoyed it, but the Hollywood version from 1999 is better, and probably easier to source.

There are two reasons why you might want to watch this version of Midsummer Night's Dream. One is Helen Mirren. She is lovely and perfect as Titania throughout and her delivery of the long monologue to Oberon in Act 2 Sc. 1 does not lose the viewer's attention for a moment. That is an awesome feat considering what a difficult passage it is.The other shining moment occurs in Act 3 Sc. 2, starting about when Demetrius wakes up to find that he is in love with Helena. The ensuing lines are delivered over top of each other, as the lovers engage in a confused quarrel. The actors add to this by pushing each other, trying to get around or over or under to talk to someone other than the one that's talking to them. Great directing and perfect timing make this scene race by like I've never seen it before.These two shining moments hardly make up for the rest of the performance which lacks sparkle. Some parts are sung (Puck's "Jack shall have Jill" speech) which is just incongruous. Perhaps the fact that Starveling sings his part as Moonshine is a bit of self-satire.Which brings me to the rude mechanicals who are particularly lacklustre. Geoffrey Palmer is absolutely wasted here. "Pyramus and Thisbe" is absolutely boring. There are exactly two bits of comic business (Bottom steals food from the wedding table on the line "'Deceiving me' is Thisbe's cue" and Starveling as Moonshine tries to upstage Bottom by hanging the lantern in front of his face) and they aren't exactly hilarious. If it's not funny, it should at least be moving, but although Flute (a very feminine Flute) tries, the director has cut most of the wedding party's backchat and they seem to have little interest in what is going on on the stage. Small wonder really.There's nothing about the sets and costumes, which suggest the English Civil War, to get us excited. The entire first scene is set in a library against a background of a ticking clock. What a great way to remind us how slowly the scene is moving!

This little viewed BBC event is certainly worth watching if you're a Shakespeare fan. I certainly am and A Midsummer's Night Dream (or, as us buffs call it, "The Dream") is certainly one of my favorites. Most of the cast will be not well known to those outside of the ranks of the fans of British theatre and indeed, Helen Mirren, always a delight, may well be the only name that stands out.There have been many versions of this play presented in both as films to be shown in theaters and as films made-for-TV. The rewarding feature of British theater is that seemingly, no matter what the venue for showing the performance, the acting is nearly always up to the highest mark of stage standards.There is no DVD or Video of which I am aware but, if this little romp crosses your screen, be sure to check it out. It's delightful and fun.