Deploying the sort of twinkly audacity that you can wield if you are a knight and dame of the realm, Sir Peter Hall and Dame Judi Dench bring a little twist to this production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Here in a silent prologue, Dench, clad as Elizabeth I, takes a script from the assembled actors then sweeps off stage to prepare to play Titania. Hall's staging draws parallels between the court of the Queen of the Fairies and that of the Virgin Queen, between two monarchs who perhaps bestow their affections unwisely. Whether or not this quite stands up scarcely seems to matter: what it gives us is a peerless performance from Dench, a touching emphasis on the ageless folly of love and a precise, humane production, refreshingly delivered in Elizabethan costume.
Dench is superb. Newly besotted with her beloved ass, she giggles like a schoolgirl at his clumsy jokes, strokes his chin with sweet tenderness and brings a real ache to the words "Oh, how I love thee". The stiff ruff and wig cannot disguise the physical yearning this ageing Titania feels. But she also finds the dark resonance in her speech about the changing climate and a touch of regal steel to her commands. Her verse speaking has beautiful clarity, and musicality and lucidity are hallmarks of this production.
Dench is well matched by Charles Edwards' proud, suave Oberon, who brings a touch of smugness to his plans to fool his estranged queen, then suffers a crisis of conscience. The production is peppered with revealing details. The lovers are sweetly serious and silly, but believably tormented. Rachael Stirling makes a delightfully funny Helena, bent double with a stitch as she pursues Ben Mansfield's scornful, hair-tossing Demetrius, but she also communicates real hurt. Annabel Scholey's Hermia and Tam Williams' Lysander, meanwhile, suggest the intoxication of desire: they practically sprint off the stage when given the cue to go to bed.
The Elizabethan setting grounds the play, particularly in the scenes with the besmocked Warwickshire mechanicals, overseen by a long-suffering Peter Quince (James Laurenson) and led by an endearingly eager and funny Bottom from Oliver Chris. Reece Ritchie's Puck doesn't quite catch the dark mischief of the sprite and the production doesn't suggest the more unsettling and mysterious aspects of the play. But it radiates humanity and wisdom.
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