Oh dear. When will young companies learn that a space does not make a play? I had high hopes of this production by new company Theatre Delicatessen, who have taken up temporary residence in an atmospheric old music showroom hidden behind the bland facade of a Regent's Street office block. Here, amid a tangle of wires and a whiff of dereliction, Bottom and his friends wear yellow builders' coats, and the fairies, haunting the window sills and edges, emerge from the shadows.
But from the opening scenes, which take place in the cafe area, before the audience is ushered into the main space where we are then seated in the round, director Frances Loy's staging fails to capitalise on the myriad possibilities of the space, offer halfway decent storytelling or suggest any reason why she felt passionate about this particular play. In the programme, Loy makes reference to contemporary themes of climate change and forced marriage, but what is in her head does not translate into the performance.
Unfortunately nothing, including some lame physical theatre, can disguise the fact that simultaneously acting and speaking the verse with any clarity is beyond the skills of many in this young cast. Mysteriously, some of them actually appear to have been to drama school. Well, either drama schools no longer produce young actors who can speak verse, or they have been very badly directed. Esther McAuley's Hermia, Dan Crow as Puck and Owen Morse as Nick Bottom are the few to emerge with any credit, but, at just 100 minutes, this unmagical Dream is an epic of dullness that fails to mine the mix of darkness and comedy that makes this play so seductive.
· Until March 3. Box office: theatredelicatessen.co.uk
