DREAM? This is more like a midsummer night’s scream as the laughs fall thicker and faster than Cupid’s arrows.

But it’s only what you’d expect when Chris Jaeger and Ben Humphrey – the local arts scene’s answer to Batman and Robin – get their hands on William Shakespeare’s forest fantasy.

For the two directors have taken the poet’s epic work, shaken it all about, turned it upside down… and made it their very own.

Yes, this is indeed Farce of Avon, with more gags and probably a lot more sauce than Worcester’s Lea and Perrins factory.

And the latter is provided in copious quantities, mainly courtesy of Rhian McLean’s sexpot take on Titania and Hippolyta. She struts about the stage, half she-wolf, half dominatrix. Oh yes, the terrible Tudors would have loved every single sassy second of this performance.

Then there’s Alicia Bennett, who gives her Helena role the full Monty minx treatment, her head so high in the clouds that she’s probably got snow in her hair.

But if you thought the first half was pretty crazy then you ain’t seen nothing yet. For as our woodland tale reconvenes in the clearing, Samuel Griffiths’ Lysander sets the tone with some classic knockabout, finely executed slapstick that wouldn’t be out of place in a silent movie.

This is neatly complemented by Sophie Vick’s Hermia, a dizzy cross between a 1920s flapper and rock perching siren.

However, the show is stolen – or rather pillaged wholesale – by John-Robert Partridge’s Puck. Making his debut for the Rep, he’s a natural comic actor who must surely have a glittering future ahead of him.

There is real chemistry between him and Gemma Martyn Smith’s Fairy, a natural partnership that almost – but not quite - eclipses the hysterical love scene between a rock chick Titania and Jonathan Darby as Bottom, who naturally makes a complete ass of himself.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream runs at the Commandery, Worcester, until Sunday, July 20. Not to be missed.