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A Midsummer Night's Dream (1981/I) (TV) More at IMDbPro »

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6 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :-
Grim, with Curdled Tone and Little Magic, 24 November 2006
6/10
Author: tonstant viewer

There is a ferocity about this production that is off-putting. Titania and Oberon are not ethereally at odds, but grimly at war. Puck has vampire fangs and looks like a hustler who'd offer to sell you club drugs. The rustics are not funny ever. In sum, the playfulness and magic we expect in this play are absent.

That said, it's pretty to look at, as director Elijah Moshinsky continues his progress through the catalog of Old Masters paintings, usually but not always in consonance with the text.

Helen Mirren is an iron-willed professional as Titania, even when the changeling child cries in her arms during a major speech. Peter McEnery's cold Oberon shows violent rage at the lovers' confusion, and in punishment holds Puck's head underwater a bit too long for comedy.

Cherith Mellor is particularly good as Helena, in her only appearance in the BBC Shakespeare series. Nigel Davenport is a pleasure to listen to as Duke Theseus, in his only appearance, other than the 1978 "Much Ado" with Anthony Andrews, Michael York and Penelope Keith that was supposed to inaugurate the series but was buried. Otherwise there is little delightful about this Dream, which all too often verges on Nightmare.

The slapstick dispute among the four lovers uses thickly overlapping dialog, which speeds things up but renders it unusable in the classroom. The rude mechanicals are gentrified here, killing Shakespeare's pointed class distinction and most of the humor with it. Geoffrey Palmer is ineffective as Peter Quince. Brian Glover gives his all as Bottom, but is Liliputian compared to the awe-inspiring Paul Rogers in the Peter Hall film.

In fact, that delightful Peter Hall film from 1968 is superior in every major aspect except the technical ones. There Ian Richardson and Judi Dench make magic as the Fairies' Rulers, Helen Mirren, Diana Rigg, David Warner and Michael Jayston are the lovers, Paul Rogers is Bottom and Ian Holm plays Puck as Oberon's faithful dog, tongue hanging out in eagerness for mischief - all shot outdoors in a wondrous twilight wood. Now that's one bewitching Dream!

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6 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :-
Fantastic, but seldom seen, 12 December 2004
9/10
Author: artzau from Sacramento, CA

This little viewed BBC event is certainly worth watching if you're a Shakespeare fan. I certainly am and A Midsummer's Night Dream (or, as us buffs call it, "The Dream") is certainly one of my favorites. Most of the cast will be not well known to those outside of the ranks of the fans of British theatre and indeed, Helen Mirren, always a delight, may well be the only name that stands out.

There have been many versions of this play presented in both as films to be shown in theaters and as films made-for-TV. The rewarding feature of British theater is that seemingly, no matter what the venue for showing the performance, the acting is nearly always up to the highest mark of stage standards.

There is no DVD or Video of which I am aware but, if this little romp crosses your screen, be sure to check it out. It's delightful and fun.

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1 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
The essence of this movie will always be with me., 26 May 2008
10/10
Author: tomfern from United States

After reading some previous comments, I can only conclude that some people were watching a different movie altogether. I found this version Of A Midsummer Night's Dream to be far superior to any other that I've ever seen .

This is my favorite of all Shakespeare's plays, so I generally stand to be critical of the various treatments offered. However, I found this cast and direction to be outstanding, visually, and emotionally. The costumes were spectacular, the settings haunting, and the acting...flawless. I loved Geoffrey Palmer's work as well. I was lucky enough to catch a repeat of it years ago, and quickly taped it so I could watch it every summer.I themed my wedding after this play.

I loved Helen Mirren's portrayal as the faerie queen, Titania. I found her to be perfect in the role. Judi Dench, I believe, played it all too 70s hippie-angsty, and could have done very well without the overexposure.

The casting of an older boy as Puck, while at first seemed unfamiliar, and wrong, he quickly won me over, and soon his age didn't matter a bit. He sure beat a manic Mickey Rooney in the Hollywood version of 1935! Who, by the way, was 15 when he played the role.

I saw some scenes on Youtube the other day, and the background music has been playing in my head for 2 days now. I'm hooked again.

My birthday is next month..my husband is buying me the entire boxed set of the BBC Shakespeare comedies! Helen Mirren as Rosalind in As You Like It is superb again...as is John Cleese as Pertruchio in The Taming of the Shrew. I can't wait till next month...I'll be in Shakespeare Utopia.

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2 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
Wonderful presentation, 8 December 2005
8/10
Author: Bex Cook (rjanecook1) from Carlisle, UK

I thought this was fantastic, from beginning to end. There was nothing significant I could criticise or find fault with, there were a few dull moments, but the majority of the action was excellent. This seems to not be very well known, there is a video, it may be rather hard to get hold of though, and there is no DVD to my knowledge. Helen Mirren sparkled as Titania, I also enjoyed the way Phil Daniels brought Puck to life. I also was delighted by Cherith Mellor as Helena, she brought the comedy and the life to this production.

On the whole, this made a great impression on me, and I recommend it for the comedy brought out in the talented acting and the superb setting.

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Could have been good, let itself down, 3 October 2009
8/10
Author: Fraser Rew from Sydney, Australia

Let me say first of all that this is easily my favourite of all Shakespeare's plays. The way that it interweaves the fantastical and the real is exceptional. But this production did not do it the credit that it deserves.

There were a lot of good things here. All Shakespearean productions seem to have at least one actor who doesn't seem at home with the language. It looked for a while as if this one would get away from that. Unfortunately, Puck's entrance kind of spoiled this for me, and as he is a major player it was doubly disappointing. He was totally miscast, and some of his better known lines were almost painful.

Having Titania's bed chamber looking like a Rubens painting was a great touch - to say nothing of Titania herself, who, played by Helen Mirren, was outstanding. Making her attendants so numerous and so young was also excellent - in theory. But again, none of them (in their, admittedly few, speaking parts) seemed in any way comfortable with the language. I realise that Shakespeare can't be easy for 10-year-olds, but surely they could have done a little better.

The sets were also a disappointment, the forests clearly being indoors and the puddles therein being miraculously free of mud. I don't know what would have been wrong with just shooting that part outdoors.

It must be a tough production to get right. There were certainly some good things there, but some unnecessarily bad ones as well. I enjoyed it, but the Hollywood version from 1999 is better, and probably easier to source.

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Cumbersome and heavy-handed, 7 June 2009
5/10
Author: Howard Schumann from Vancouver, B.C.

A BBC, Time-Life production from the early 1980s, this TV adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream has all of Shakespeare's words but none of the magic. Trying to ensure that none of the text is left out, the actors deliver their lines at a breakneck pace, almost sounding like the debating team in Rocket Science. Consequently, much of Shakespeare's nuance and poetry is lost. This is a play that relies on myth and allegory to make its point which is essentially that reality is malleable and can be influenced by the spirit world for either good or ill, yet its treatment here is cumbersome and heavy-handed rather than light and playful.

The play, replete with allusions to Greek mythology, is about a trio of mixed-up lovers: Hermia, Denetrius, and Lysander. Hermia's overbearing father Egeus is partial to Demetrius, his choice to be Hermia's husband. Indeed, Egeus' description in the play's first scene of his love for Demetrius sounds suspiciously like Shakespeare's entreaties to the fair youth in the Sonnets. In the same vein, Duke Theseus, who is marrying former enemy Hippolyta, sounds the refrain that the duty of a beloved youth is to make a copy of himself to preserve for future generations. Meanwhile Hermia is fixated on Lysander and will not consider anyone else as a husband, although choosing to disobey her father may lead to a potential death sentence or life as a nun which may be the same thing. To escape, Hermia agrees to run off with Lysander into the forest but naively conveys the information to Helena, a young maiden who longs for Demetrius.

She follows Demetrius into the forest to try and stop Hermia and Lysander but they come upon a group of fairies who have their own agenda, leading to a romantic farce of mistaken identities caused by the fairies magical potions. One of the subplots concerns a theatrical troupe of workers who offer a play within a play that bring the proceedings to a comic high. The cast is competent but uninspired with the possible exception of Helen Mirren as The Faerie Queen. Nicky Henson as Demetrius and Robert Lindsay as Lysander seem too old for the part of young lovers and speak their lines with a clunky earnestness that is all wrong for the mood. Phil Daniels plays Puck with a demonic grin, belying the characters' playful nature. All in all, work of nimble grace is turned into an often incomprehensible shouting match that makes one long for some of the magic fairies potion - to sleep, perchance to dream.

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Elijah Moshinsky's A Midsummer Night's Dream, 31 March 2009
7/10
Author: ky_chong

As many would know, "A Midsummer Night's Dream" has three separate plot threads, concerning the lovers, the fairy king and queen, and the Athenian worksmen. In this BBC production directed by Elijah Moshinsky, two of them work, one doesn't.

The rustics, like one reviewer says, just ain't funny. Brian Glover is disappointing as Bottom. He is totally miscast, as is Geoffrey Palmer's Quince. Also, Nigel Davenport's Theseus is too old.

Luckily, the females in the film make a splendid team, and the lovers' scenes work very well. It is enough to cancel out the disappointment concerning Bottom and his co-workers' subplot. Plaudits go especially to Helen Mirren's Titania and Cherith Mellor's Helena.

Elijah Moshinsky emphasizes the dark and ominous side of the play, with minimal lighting, and music by child fairies always lightening the mood.

All in all, this 1981 BBC production (in the Complete BBC Shakespeare series) is one worth catching.

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3 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :-
Two Shining Moments, 19 April 2006
6/10
Author: Bologna King from Backwoods Canada

There are two reasons why you might want to watch this version of Midsummer Night's Dream. One is Helen Mirren. She is lovely and perfect as Titania throughout and her delivery of the long monologue to Oberon in Act 2 Sc. 1 does not lose the viewer's attention for a moment. That is an awesome feat considering what a difficult passage it is.

The other shining moment occurs in Act 3 Sc. 2, starting about when Demetrius wakes up to find that he is in love with Helena. The ensuing lines are delivered over top of each other, as the lovers engage in a confused quarrel. The actors add to this by pushing each other, trying to get around or over or under to talk to someone other than the one that's talking to them. Great directing and perfect timing make this scene race by like I've never seen it before.

These two shining moments hardly make up for the rest of the performance which lacks sparkle. Some parts are sung (Puck's "Jack shall have Jill" speech) which is just incongruous. Perhaps the fact that Starveling sings his part as Moonshine is a bit of self-satire.

Which brings me to the rude mechanicals who are particularly lacklustre. Geoffrey Palmer is absolutely wasted here. "Pyramus and Thisbe" is absolutely boring. There are exactly two bits of comic business (Bottom steals food from the wedding table on the line "'Deceiving me' is Thisbe's cue" and Starveling as Moonshine tries to upstage Bottom by hanging the lantern in front of his face) and they aren't exactly hilarious. If it's not funny, it should at least be moving, but although Flute (a very feminine Flute) tries, the director has cut most of the wedding party's backchat and they seem to have little interest in what is going on on the stage. Small wonder really.

There's nothing about the sets and costumes, which suggest the English Civil War, to get us excited. The entire first scene is set in a library against a background of a ticking clock. What a great way to remind us how slowly the scene is moving!

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5 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
See this version!, 5 February 2005
9/10
Author: d2mgh0 from United States

I stumbled upon this production as a teen on PBS one night and have never forgotten it. I'm not particularly a Shakespeare buff but this production gave me a serious soft spot for "Dream" and I've seen several productions of it. This one puts the rest to shame. This is perhaps the most palatable of the Bard's works and the staging and direction make it even more embraceable but do not dumb it down. A taste of this and you may well find yourself going out of your way to rent "Hamlet", "Othello" (or Lord help you) "Titus" (no, can't honestly recommend that one although Sir Anthony Hopkins, Jessica Lange and Alan Cumming all performed wonderfully).

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2 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
Helen Mirren and The Dream, 28 February 2006
7/10
Author: gentlepuck from United States

This is the second time I've seen her in this play, first as Titania. The first time she was in a movie version of the Dream she was Hermia, one of the lovers. This is a good version for a class room viewing. It lacks the nudity and innuendos that Hall's and Hoffman's exhibited. This is also the one I know of where Puck is a punk. I love this version because it doesn't cut out any of the dialogue. It heightens the tension and passion Mirren's character had in the section about the environmental affects her feud with her husband has had. The costumes do not blend well with one another. It makes it hard to date and does not give the story a sense of timelessness. Also, you can get this on video. It's hard to find but it can be located at a library near you. Blockbuster will not carry it for whatever reason. PBS is a good source too but don't hold out for it.

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