Stometer Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Loui Blair It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

Bumpy Chip It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

dcrozier-04696 This is nonsense. What are actors of Maxine Peake's calibre doing in a misconstrued, overwrought, inept production like this. I was shocked when I saw this as the BBC usually has a good grasp on Elizabethan theatre but not this time. Avoid it! The Storm troopers are more than an anachronism; the forest scenes and the fairies seem to be at odds with each other; the lovers don't seem to understand the consequences of running from Athens away from "the sharp Athenian law"; Bottom's dream isn't one; the mechanicals are just that, mechanical; and Titania and Oberon seem to be discussing a shopping list over a pint for most of their interaction. In the year of the 400th anniversary of his death I would have hoped the the BeeB would have produced something more satisfying than this forgettable Midsummer Night's fiasco.

jim-mckillop This updating of the play works beautifully I think. I love Shakespeare and classic opera and I'm wary of modern updates - so often they are facile or irritating and get in the way of the text/score. But this was a delight: genuinely funny, lovely special effects and a real feel for the soul of the play. It wasn't perfect - occasionally the words got lost in the music or through less than perfect diction. I studied this play at school more than 50 years ago and didn't get much of the humour or the cruelty in the treatment of the characters that this production brought out. I will want to see more traditional productions as well but will return to this one too. Well done RTD - overall it was a great 1hour 35minutes. The BBC have done us proud in the Shakespeare anniversary year with this and the wonderful Hollow Crown.

rboysdad This is a daft and lovely play given a new bbc adaptation devised by Russell T Davies. The sense of the play comes through very well, and Maxine Peake's Titania is great, an actress who understands how to get the meaning across, whereas Michelle Pfeiffer in the 1999 Hollywood showing is less punkish than Peake (who is also wonderfully randy) but Pfeiffer seems not to understand the poetry or know how to get it over. Peake does.This production is for me enormously weakened by the presence of Matt Lucas who I find moderatelyh funny in some things he does, but the sub plot of the mechanicals can be terribly tedious and stupid and Lucas does his level best to make it worse. In the 1999 film Kevin Kline famously steals (perhaps) the whole film with his Bottom, and the whole group of nitwits, Roger Rees, Sam Rockwell et al. - the casting of these talents impresses versus the buffoonery of the bbc attempt.It's hard to dislike RTD's work, though I think he's nuts to make Athens a fascist state and to kill off Theseus like that, but the whole thing is so mad that I reckon it's all fair game. The lesbian and gay touches (I noticed 3 - Demetrius loves Lysander for a bit, Titania and Hippolyta snog, and a guard and a black man are very smitten thanks to Puck (both Pucks, Stanley Tucci and the less pronounceable beauty in the bbc version are superb)are lovely, though. I note there is a version by Julie Taymor but I've searched the net and it's not available. Maybe it is perfect and not another curates's egg?

Prismark10 Russell T Davies certainly has taken inspiration from Baz Luhrmann and given Shakespeare a vigorous shake up and update.In the tyrannical court of Athens which is mocked up with Nazi type regalia, dictator Theseus plans his wedding to Hippolyta, who is trussed just like Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs. Meanwhile young Hermia is sentenced to death by her own father as she refuses to marry Demetrius but becomes enchanted with the Harry Potter like Lysander. Meanwhile her friend Helena pines for Demetrius who ignores her. In the forest they fall to mischievous behaviour by the fairies.In the town an amateur theatre group make plans to rehearse a play for the court but Bottom himself becomes transformed to an ass and finds that the fairy Titania has fallen for him thanks to spells woven by the spurned Oberon and aided by Puck.RTD reunited with the Doctor Who production team for technical, visual and special effects and composer Murray Gold who brings bombastic music to accompany the imagery. There are some nice touches of RTD's humour. The patrons of the local inn are watching 'The Comedy of Errors' on television which is actually 'You've been Framed.'Once we enter the forest, it becomes a bit trippy and the pared down text works a treat. I read this play at a school and it was rather unfathomable but here the way RTD has presented it on screen it really works.It all ends with a bit of a sing song from Bernard Cribbins. What more can you want.