Image by Emily Hardy
Review by: Blake Zhang
Rating: ★★★★
The Glitch, London, 17 May 2026.
There is something impossible to recreate about youthful energy. Once it passes, it passes. That feeling sits at the centre of Fleshment Theatre’s production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at The Glitch. The whole performance feels full of excitement, affection, and passion. It is the kind of enthusiasm that reminds you why small theatre productions can sometimes be more enjoyable than much bigger shows.
This version runs for around an hour and cuts a lot of the side plots and extra material from Shakespeare’s original text. It makes the story much tighter and easier to follow, especially for audiences unfamiliar with the play. At the same time, each group of characters still gets their moment. The lovers, the fairies, and the amateur actors all have clear comic highlights, and the pace rarely slows down.
One of the most memorable choices is the use of 80s and 90s pop music throughout the show. It gives the production a strong sense of nostalgia without feeling forced. The songs fit naturally into the playful atmosphere of the play and help create a very relaxed relationship between the actors and audience. The whole room felt light and open from the beginning.
The cast is made up entirely of women and non binary performers, and this changes the feeling of the play in a really interesting way. In Shakespeare’s time, the play would originally have been performed by an all male cast, with men also playing the female characters. Part of the comedy came from this confusion and theatrical mismatch. This production creates a different kind of mismatch. Seeing women perform some of the more arrogant or uncomfortable male characters makes certain scenes feel much less offensive. Some of the exaggerated masculinity becomes deliberately awkward and vain in a funny way, so the audience can laugh at it instead of simply accepting it.
Because of this, the atmosphere in the theatre felt surprisingly safe and comfortable. There are moments in Shakespeare’s comedies that can feel difficult for modern audiences, especially in terms of gender and relationships, but this production handles them with confidence and humour. The audience around me seemed very willing to relax and enjoy the jokes.
The scenes with the Mechanicals are also very successful. One of the funniest parts of A Midsummer Night’s Dream has always been the idea of professional actors pretending to be terrible actors. The cast clearly understands this kind of comedy. Their performances are silly and overconfident in exactly the right way.
What I liked most, though, was how much care could be seen throughout the production. You can feel the effort behind every costume, prop, and small visual joke. Even with a limited budget, the show is full of creative little details. Nothing feels lazy or half finished. The whole company seems genuinely invested in making the performance work.
This production may be small in scale, but it has a warmth and honesty that many larger productions lack. More than anything else, it reminded me that theatre works best when people are fully committed to having fun with the material and sharing that energy with the audience.