Emily Lim’s folk-inflected, audience-participation-heavy production at Shakespeare’s Globe wins a warm reception for its infectious energy and crowd-pleasing spirit, though a few critics wonder whether the Bard’s darker magic has been left behind in the bubbles.
Emily Lim’s new production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream opened the Globe’s 2026 summer season on 1 May, running until 29 August.
Lim, who is best known for her large-scale community theatre works, including several productions for the National Theatre’s Public Acts programme, directs a company led by Michael Grady-Hall as Puck, Adrian Richards as Bottom, Audrey Brisson in the dual roles of Hippolyta and Titania and Enyi Okoronkwo as both Theseus and Oberon.
The production features an original folk score by Jim Fortune, design by Aldo Vázquez, and costume concept by Fly Davis.
The critical response has been broadly positive, with most reviewers charmed by its warmth, wit and sheer exuberance, though some felt the relentless good cheer left little room for the stranger and darker undercurrents present in the play.
The verdict: A gleefully interactive, family-friendly Dream that prioritises joy over darkness — and largely gets away with it.
Critic’s comparison
From the moment willing groundlings are invited onstage for a pre-show “audition”, Emily Lim makes clear this is not a Dream for purists. Her production is a communal event as much as a piece of theatre: one that uses the Globe’s unique relationship with its audience not as a gimmick but as its central organising principle.
Folk songs, bubble guns, floating flowers, singalongs and spontaneous cheers are all part of the fabric of an evening that is, at its best, genuinely transporting.
At the heart of it is Michael Grady-Hall’s Puck, an actor already acclaimed for his anarchic Feste in the RSC’s recent Twelfth Night. He presents a jester-ish woodland spirit armed with soap-bubble guns and an improvisational gift that keeps the 1,000-strong crowd in the palm of his hand.
Equally winning is Adrian Richards’s Bottom: a theatre-obsessed am-dram enthusiast who turns up to rehearsals in a Hamilton T-shirt and whose transformation into a silver-ribboned ass is played with enormous sweetness and comic intelligence.
Critics say the production is less successful when it comes to the play’s more troubling dimensions. Several noted that the forests of this Dream carry few shadows, and that the lovers’ peril never feels quite real. But as the confetti and bubbles rain down in the carnivalesque finale, it’s difficult to argue with an evening that sends audiences out grinning.
| Publication | Rating | The Key Takeaway |
| Financial Times | ★★★★ | Inventive and irresistible, though complexity isn’t its thing |
| The Guardian | ★★★★ | Generous, creative and hilarious — a Dream the whole family can enjoy. |
| The Standard | ★★★★ | A Dream brought to life with an inventive take. |
| The Times | ★★★★ | Not so much good drama as a very good time |
| Time Out | ★★★★ | Good-vibes-only and interaction-heavy, the perfect start to outdoor season. |
| What’s On Stage | ★★★★ | Genuinely joyous, energetic and celebratory |
| The Stage | ★★★ | Frivolous, folksy fun that conjures a community spirit |
| The Telegraph | ★★★ | Admirable energy and invention, but too much Butlin’s and not enough enchanted forest |
The reviews: what they loved about A Midsummer Night’s Dream
- Michael Grady-Hall’s Puck steals the show. Every publication singled out Grady-Hall as the production’s standout performer. The Times’ Dominic Maxwell called him “a clown of twinkling restraint,” while the Financial Times’ Sarah Hemming praised his ability to “forge the bond between actors and audience.“
- Adrian Richards’s Bottom is a triumph. Richards received near-universal acclaim for his warm-hearted, physically inventive portrayal — a “massive theatre fan” who can’t contain his enthusiasm, in the FT’s description. The Telegraph’s Dominic Cavendish called it “especially lovely work,” and The Guardian praised the comic flair “suffused into each movement.“
- The audience interaction is inventive and genuinely funny. Where lesser productions treat participation as a bolt-on, critics agreed Lim weaves it into the production’s DNA. What’s On Stage’s Theo Bosanquet highlighted the running gag in which Puck accidentally doses himself with love potion and spends the evening mooning over an audience member — culminating in that spectator joining the cast onstage for the wedding ceremony. The FT called it “irresistible fun.“
- The folk score and design create a distinctive world. Jim Fortune’s original compositions drew warm praise, as did Aldo Vázquez’s set, from which exotic blooms telescope outward as the forest takes hold.
The reviews: what fell flat for A Midsummer Night’s Dream
- The darkness has been almost entirely drained away. This was the most consistent critical reservation. The FT’s Sarah Hemming noted “little sense of jeopardy” and observed that the distinction between patriarchal Athens and the freedom of the woods is absent here. Time Out acknowledged the production doesn’t engage with the play’s more troubling elements, and the Telegraph felt the lovers never seem “truly alone, and perturbed, in the woods.“
- The love story fails to make much of an impact. The Guardian felt the crisscrossing romantic plot “fails to make much of an impact,” and What’s On Stage noted the narrative is “sublimated to the showmanship.” The Times observed that the four young lovers “work too hard to try to land their laughs.”
- The relentless interaction has its costs. The Telegraph’s Dominic Cavendish was the most pointed on this: too much collective participation means the climactic Pyramus and Thisbe sequence feels “almost surplus to requirements,” and he lamented that “so much of the poetry has been cut.” Even the more sympathetic What’s On Stage noted the production “is not the most lucid you’ll see from a storytelling perspective.“
The back story
A Midsummer Night’s Dream is Shakespeare’s most-produced comedy and one of his most structurally audacious plays, combining three distinct worlds (the Athenian court, the enchanted forest and the mechanicals’ rehearsal room) colliding over the course of a single midsummer night.
At its centre is a fairy king and queen, Oberon and Titania, whose domestic quarrel sets off a chain of magical confusion among four young Athenian lovers and a troupe of amateur actors preparing a play for the Duke’s wedding.
Lim’s version is a conscious act of joy, as the director puts it in her programme notes, in which “joy as a radical act can bind communities together.”
The cast includes:
- Puck: Michael Grady-Hall
- Bottom: Adrian Richards
- Titania / Hippolyta: Audrey Brisson
- Oberon / Theseus: Enyi Okoronkwo
- Quince: Victoria Moseley
- Helena: Romaya Weaver
- Hermia: Sophie Cox
- Lysander: Mel Lowe
- Demetrius: Gavi Singh Chera
The company also features Jamal Franklin (Snug), Gareth Kennerley (Flute), Tumi Olufawo (Moth) and musicians Sally Simpson and Piotr Jordan.
The creative team includes Emily Lim (director), Aldo Vázquez (designer), Fly Davis (costume concept), Jim Fortune (composer, Globe associate), James Cousins (choreographer).
Where to see A Midsummer Night’s Dream
- Venue: Shakespeare’s Globe, London, until 29 August 2026
- Full details here A Midsummer Night’s Dream
What are the critics saying about A Midsummer Night's Dream?
"Emily Lim's joyous, effervescent Midsummer Night's Dream... foregrounds the role-play in the story and celebrates the transient community created by live theatre."
"She [Lim] draws links between folklore, traditional song and ritual, and with ancient stories of betrayal, spirits and changelings. The fairies lull their queen to sleep with a maypole dance; Hermia and Helena sing the Irish ballad “Step it Out Mary”; old songs mix with new works composed by Jim Fortune. And this crisp staging buzzes with inventive touches throughout."
"In the programme, Lim talks about “joy as a radical act” that can bind communities together. That’s what she delivers, and it feels pretty necessary right now."
"I can't remember the last time I got the giggles in the theatre but director Emily Lim's joyful take on A Midsummer Night's Dream just about undid me."
"The audience interaction elements aren’t just a fun add-on here but a vital part of the show. In fact, we’re so fully integrated into the action that in the closing scenes, one happy spectator – as part of a brilliant running gag – joins Puck on stage for a hand-tying ceremony to spontaneous cheers all round."
"This is the rarest of things: a Dream the whole family can enjoy... generous, creative and clever, always with an eye to making the audience feel included."
And now comes Emily Lim’s celebratory, playful, bit-of-everything evening where, for once, the publicity has it bang-on: it’s a “communal celebration"
"And it’s hard not to be sucked in as the fairies dance and sing (good work from the choreographer James Cousins) and as bright flowers sprout from unexpected places in Aldo Vázquez’s design."
"That's the key to the success of an evening that's not so much good drama as a good time."
"Grady-Hall, a standout as Feste in the RSC's recent Twelfth Night, once again proves a clown of twinkling restraint."
"Aldo Vázquez’s design and Jim Fortune’s score evokes a bucolic half-Elizabethan England, full of maypole dancing and folk songs."
"By the time it all ends in a virtual apocalypse of bubbles, it's safe to say that you will have been charmed."
"A genuinely joyous, energetic and celebratory interpretation."
"There’s an intriguingly androgynous edge to the cast, notably Lowe’s Lysander (one of a quartet of pastel-clad lovers, alongside Sophie Cox, Romaya Weaver and Gavi Singh Chera) and Enyi Okoronkwo’s dress-wearing Oberon."
"The production is not the most lucid you'll see from a storytelling perspective; it feels the narrative is sublimated to the showmanship, the darker and more poetic aspects of the play drowned out in a sea of bubbles. But this is forgivable in a version that feels unapologetically fun, escapist and, I daresay, well-judged for the current times."
"They conjure such a community spirit that offence would be impossible."
"It takes a butterfly approach to its themes, fluttering briefly over each, then moving to the next.."
"If, conceptually, it's a little scattered, what binds this production — and its viewers — comes in the form of some entertaining audience participation."
"The Dream is the Shakespeare play I’ve seen most often and I therefore approach it with weariness. Lim and her cast made it come alive for me again."
"There’s copious audience participation, however, which is usually my very idea of horror but works surprisingly well here."
"Designer Aldo Vázquez gives us exotic blooms that telescope from the musicians’ gallery where the five-piece band pick out spirited, fiddle-and-tuba driven tunes."
"I honestly can't fault the energy of the ensemble, and there are ample instances of individual excellence."
"For all the admirable industry and invention of Emily Lim's production, at times I felt as if I'd been trapped in Butlin's rather than spirited away to an enchanted forest outside Athens... I just wish there was a bit more trust in the Bard to work his own customary magic."
Shakespeare's Globe, London
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