By Jennifer Beasley.
Artistic Director Glenn Elston OAM has once again demonstrated his complete mastery on the plays of William Shakespeare with this riotous deconstruction of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, with hilarious results in this play within several plays, featuring an assortment of The Barb’s most comical characters.
There must be a bit of Midas magic in Glenn Elston OAM, Artistic Director for the Australian Shakespeare Company (ASC), for his successes are boundless. From founding the Melbourne International Comedy Festival in 1987, now the biggest comedy festival in the world, to transforming Much Ado About Nothing into a rock musical, with the equally talented Musical Director Paul Norton, these two consummate artists keep pushing boundaries.
Elston’s latest foray is the very clever ‘borrowing’ of Shakespeare’s most inept characters, The Mechanics from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and reworking them into a laugh fest that is beautifully sited at the Royal Botanic Gardens.
The premise starts with Peter Quince, famed for being unable to keep his prose in meter, and a leading character from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, who is insistent that his play, Pyramus and Thisbe, be performed before the upcoming wedding of the Duke Thesus and his beloved, the Duchess-to-be Hippolyta.
Acted by a very campy Jackson McGovern, I felt like this role was always meant to have this very versatile actor perform it. Line perfect and performing an egotistical character who outshines Trump, audience members who have seen McGovern in his previous role as McDuff in Macbeth, will appreciate the great talent that he, and the other cast members, are.
And then the play takes a right turn. Or a left. I don’t know it went somewhere anyway, and I was laughing too much to really care as what I can only describe as a demented visit into the land of the Muppets crossed with The Goodies, South Park and that weird dream I had before my VCE Chemistry Exam.
Utilising the other characters from The Mechanics, a misfit troupe of actors that are also named as The Athenian Players, we are introduced to Snug, Nick Bottom, Francis Flute, Tom Snout and Robin Starveling. Not afraid of breaking the fourth wall, I do believe they also broke the hitherto unknown fifth wall, by pinching some snake lollies and other bits of edibles from the various picnic goers who gleefully fed the actors.
Maddie Somers (Tails, A Midsummer Night’s Dream) brilliantly nails Snug. ‘Can’t read, can’t write,’ but boy, she can act! Loved her monologue as Falstaff from Henry IV, part 1, and the side-splitting monologue from As You Like It that becomes a racing commentary!
Our hapless troupe cycle through various plays such as Macbeth (with witch Muppets gleefully included), to Hamlet (The MasterChef of Denmark) and a page turning lesson into the War of The Roses, from a body-positive Nick Bottom, played by scene stealing Peter Houghton (a Green Room recipient for best everything!) all in an effort to find the best and most innocuous play to perform before the Duchy without losing their heads in the meantime.
Halfway through and we pause for Intermission. At 120 minutes long this is needed as we’d eaten everything we brought with us and sunk a beer, and those with premier tickets get their beach chair, glass of wine and intermission hot drink (I chose the Pinot Noir (Lovely) and Hot Chocolate (equally lovely), all of which is included in the price.
Under the gentle glide of the Flying Foxes overhead, the second act RAMPS IT UP!
Opening with a boot scooting line dance (because they can), the troupe bring out the best in eternally happy Tom Snout, a marvellous Scott Jackson (Romeo & Juliet) who kills it with his interpretive dance (yes, you read this right) of Romeo & Juliet. With Jackson as an awkward leg kicking Romeo, and Francis Flute as Juliet (I think. I was gasping for air I was laughing so much), it’s hard to pick who was the most ridiculous character.
A Hip-Hop King Lear got the audience clapping along to the snappy refrain, and the musical take on Othello: An Opera in 4 minutes, has improved my views on the original play.
With roller skating skills that challenge Xanadu, Francis Flute, aka Alex Cooper (Hair, The Wind In The Willows), does a brilliant job in any role he is cast in, and I will always look at Anthony and Cleopatra with new eyes. An eidetic memory that I can never erase, thanks to Robin Starveling, played by Hugh Sexton (MacBeth) and whose portrayal of sex-mad Cleopatra is staggeringly funny.
But to me the highlight is the Johnny Cash song, Ring of Fire. An outlandish Anthony as acted by a very, very, short tunic wearing Peter Houghton hams it up to the hysterical degree, with the audience so helplessly attuned to the absurdity, that the appearance of a massive 20 metre Asp, signalling the death of Cleopatra, and having the borrowings of Monty Python and The Goon Show scaling all over it, is taken as reality. A giant snake? Yep, check that!
Great and inventive choreography by Sue-Ellen Shook means this play runs like a well-oiled machine.
With each actor intelligently staying in their respective characters, this is a total blast!
Peter Quince Presents: Shakespeare’s Best Bits playing at 7:30 pm in the gorgeous gardens of the Royal Botanic Gardens until 17th January, 2026.
Image: Ben Fon
