Tag: Richard Pepper

For the Lambeth Fringe, The New Rep Theatre tears through Richard Pepper’s adaptation of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream in just 90 minutes. Focusing on the four lovers as they get twisted up by the fairies in the forest, while also bringing in the mechanicals, the actors in a play within a play - rehearsing in the forest and caught up in the fairies playing around. There’s a lot of fourth wall breaking, asides to the audience and some very modern moments, New Rep have certainly gone all out for the comedy to - mostly - success but a few moments land awkwardly and feel tacked on, pulling us out of the world rather than deeper into it. A sharper edit or simply more restraint would have helped here. Jack Gogarty’s Bottom works well but has a naive earnestness despite his se...