Two things are certain at Regent's Park open-air theatre: rain and A Midsummer Night's Dream. Although both will surely come later in the season, it kicked off on a balmy summer's evening with Shakespeare's great play about the making of a new England and a new king. This is a good, accessible choice, for, of all Shakespeare's history plays, this is the one that most bursts and bubbles with humanity: the terrible guilt of Henry IV for the death of his predecessor; the journey of Henry's son, Hal, from callow youth to king-in-waiting; the frailty and foibles of the fat man, Falstaff, always out to save his own skin.
The dynamics of this space can be tough on subtlety, but Alan Strachan's production is much more than a simple crowd pleaser. There are some lovely little touches in almost all the performances, whether it is Christopher Benjamin's Falstaff with his butter-wouldn't-melt-in-my mouth look of wounded innocence whenever he is caught in a tight spot, or Christopher Godwin's Henry IV, who sags in his outsize throne like an old teddy that has lost its stuffing, and can't bear to be touched by his sons.
It is surely deliberate that Jordan Frieda's Prince Hal bears an uncanny resemblance to our own Prince William, but what is more interesting is the way he and Hotspur (Keith Dunphy, a terrific mixture of the unsophisticated and the heroic) reflect off each other, eventually emerging as brothers beneath the skin but enemies on the battlefield.
Kit Surrey's design, with its old doors, suggests a past upon which the door has been firmly closed and puts England centre stage with its flag motif in the characters' costumes. An enjoyable evening, and not a fairy in sight.
· Until September 11. Box office: 08700 601 811.
