Howard Goodall’s The Dreaming – NYMT

Howard Goodall & Charles Hart made a great job, back in 2001, of adapting Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream as a musical for National Youth Music Theatre. It was one of the first things I saw in the (then new) Linbury Studio Theatre at the ROH. This is the second outing of the second (2012) revival, now at The Rose Theatre in Kingston – a space which suits it very well indeed.

It’s set in 1914 in Somerset, on midsummer’s night (obviously!), which was just over a month before the outbreak of the First World War. The royals are the local nobility, the fairies are the woodlanders, the mechanicals are the village mummer’s group led by the vicar and Puck is the blacksmith’s boy. The lover’s story is the same and the mummer’s perform The Ballad of St. George.

It’s a nice score, though without the emotional sweep and soaring melodies of other Goodall works; perhaps a simpler score for young people? Charles Hart’s modern dialogue book and lyrics tell the story well and the luxury of 26 woodlanders pays off. This production seems to concentrate on the acting, movement and comedy at the expense of the music, which I felt was much weaker than when I first saw it.

It was the first night of this short 3-performance run so it wasn’t perhaps as slick as it will be by the third. Playing to a primarily young audience also brought with it the now expected challenges of chatter, rustling and texting which may well have contributed to some disappointment on my part.

It would be interesting to see a professional company produce this, though the cast of 41 and band of 12 would no doubt have to be scaled down. Go on, someone, have a go!