A rave-scene Midsummer Night's Dream at CFT

If you fancy a night at the theatre that swaps ancient Athens for 1990s Sussex, Chichester Festival Theatre has its new production of A Midsummer Night's Dream running until Saturday 17 October. It is a bold reimagining that drops Shakespeare's play into the height of the South Downs rave scene, and it has been landing very well with critics.

The story opens in 1994, in the office of Conservative MP Theseus, his fiancée Hippolyta and Chief Constable Egeus, who sends Hermia away for falling in love with her friend Lysanda instead of Demetrius. Hermia and Lysanda flee into the South Downs, pursued by Demetrius and Helena, and stumble upon the fairies: King Oberon, Queen Titania and their cousin Puck. Meanwhile, the Chichester Young Conservative Association is rehearsing 'The Most Lamentable Comedy and Most Cruel Death of Pyramus and Thisbe' for the wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta, until Puck turns Nick Bottom into a donkey and enchants Titania to fall in love with him. The whole thing is co-directed by CFT artistic director Justin Audibert and Hannah Joss, with movement direction by Jade Hackett, fight and intimacy direction by Bethan Clark and Robin Hellier, costumes by Ryan Dawson Laight, lighting by Elliot Griggs and sound design and composition by Alexandra Faye Braithwaite.

The cast is worth the trip alone. Munya Chawawa, the British-Zimbabwean actor, comedian and comedy rapper known for characters like the posh drill rapper Unknown P and the chef Jonny Oliver, makes his stage and Shakespeare debut as Bottom. Tom Kanji plays Theseus, Celeste Dodwell is Hippolyta, Angela Sant'Albano and Ellie Larkin are Hermia and Lysanda, Kieran Taylor-Ford and Freya Parks take on Demetrius and Helena, David Sturzaker and Eve Ponsonby are Oberon and Titania, and Shane David-Joseph plays Puck. Kishore Walker is Thisbe and Henry Everett is Egeus.

Visually, the production leans hard into its rave setting. There are around 200 litres of neon, an acid house base, ravers, disco balls, dry ice, DJ decks for Oberon and a decorated golf cart, with the theme of rebellion set against the political backdrop of Michael Howard's Criminal Justice Act. Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers, called it 'sheer genius' and 'a cracking conclusion to an exceptionally strong summer', while Theatre and Tonic's Emmie Newitt praised the chemistry of the quartet of lovers, especially Sant'Albano and Larkin, who play Hermia and Lysanda with a sapphic twist. Hywel Farrow-Wilton named Larkin's Lysanda as his favourite character and singled out Gavin Rasmussen in the double role of Changeling and Philostrate.

A few practical notes before you book. Tickets start at £10, the running time is 2 hours 20 minutes including an interval, and the Festival Theatre holds between 1,206 and 1,300 people around its thrust stage. The building itself is a Grade II* listed site in Oaklands Park, designed by Philip Powell and Hidalgo Moya and opened by founder Leslie Evershed-Martin in 1962 as Britain's first modern thrust stage theatre, effectively crowdfunded by local people and businesses. It celebrated its 60th anniversary in 2022, and the smaller Minerva Theatre, which seats around 300, opened nearby in 1989. Mark Foster chairs the theatre, and Justin Audibert has been artistic director since July 2023, having come from London's Unicorn Theatre.