THERE is magic in the air in the world of fantasy conjured up by Shakespeare in A Midsummer Night's Dream and the RSC's latest imagining of the play has its own measure of enchantment.

The roistering tale of love, both requited and unrequited, sprinkled liberally with fairy dust, is a good night's - whether in midsummer or at any other time of the year - entertainment in the hands of an accomplished director and well chosen cast, as it is here.

The mischief wrought by Oberon, king of the fairies and executed by his minion, Puck, leads to all sorts of fallings out - between Hermia and her friend, Helena, and likewise between Lysander and Demetrius, who are at odds anyway as rivals for the affections of Hermia.

Oberon's own domestic difficulties with Titania, queen of the fairies, prompts him to instruct Puck to bewitch Titania to fall in love with the first person she sees when she awakes. That is Bottom, strangely irresistible to Titania, despite his ass's head. Puck, meanwhile, targets the wrong man when ordered to make Demetrius fall in love with Helena.

That provokes the series of misunderstandings which show off the Bard's poetic prose and comic setpieces to best effect and well interpreted in this production. Special plaudits go to Caitlin Mottram as Helena and Malcolm Storry as Bottom, who really comes into his own, together with his fellow tradesmen as they present the play within the play - the fairly dreadful Pyramus and Thisbe - at the end of the play outside the play. A Midsummer Night's Dream runs until October.

Review by PETER McMILLAN