SOURCE: Burnett, Mark Thornton. “Impressions of Fantasy: Adrian Noble's A Midsummer Night's Dream.” In Shakespeare, Film, Fin de Siècle, edited by Mark Thornton Burnett and Ramona Wray, pp. 73-101. London: Macmillan, 2000.

In the following essay, Burnett discusses Adrian Noble's 1996 film version of A Midsummer Night's Dream, noting that while Noble's 1994-95 Royal Shakespeare Company stage production of the play was lauded by critics, the film adaptation received primarily negative reviews. Burnett reevaluates the film, praising it as a reinvention of the comedy “for the millennium.”

When Adrian Noble's A Midsummer Night's Dream was performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company as part of its 1994-5 Stratford-upon-Avon and touring programme, the production attracted widespread acclaim. Eminent critics joined to sing the praises of a ‘magnificent’, ‘notable’, ‘outstanding’, ‘stunning’ and ‘vibrant’ reinterpretation of Shakespeare's play.¹ No doubt spurred on by this theatrical success, the RSC, in collaboration with Channel Four...