Cards on the table, I’ve never really been a fan of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. With apologies to readers under 50, it’s all a bit Bobby-Ewing-in-the-shower for me - one minute the characters’ lives are flung into turmoil, the next everything’s fine and it was all just a dream. Surely the greatest playwright the English language has ever known can come up with a more imaginative resolution than that?

I’m in the minority of course. AMND is the most performed of any Shakespeare play, and its mix of rom-com, magic and slapstick has been enchanting audiences for over 400 years.

The RSC’s latest incarnation is arguably one of the venue’s most contemporary and ambitious takes on the original, with a variety of hi-tech bells and whistles to appeal to younger audiences and complement the undeniable draw of Mathew Baynton (co-writer and star of TV hits Ghosts and Horrible Histories among others) as ass-inine (ahem) amateur thespian Bottom.

Baynton certainly gives it his all as one of the group of actors that initially offer a subplot to the play’s primary focus - four young lovers whose lives are turned upside down by the whims of a warring fairy King and Queen - but whose story soon gets tangled up in the same weird and wonderful world of enchanted woods, love potions and amoral fairies.

That world is brilliantly created through a terrific mix of video projection, special effects and genuinely magical illusions - those bells and whistles I mentioned earlier - which merits huge praise but never overshadows the performances of a hugely talented cast. Baynton - whose comic timing is impeccable - raises the bar whenever he’s on the stage, but the company is packed with talent, notably Boadicea Ricketts as the sassy and street Helena, Ryan Hutton as an athletically prancing Lysander and Premi Tamang, who stepped up as a late replacement Puck without missing a beat or a magical glow worm.

And if all the above is starting to sound like the production cast a spell on me too, then you’d be right. The dynamic staging and dynamic (and dynamite) performances draw you in, the laughs are almost non-stop as the farce gets funnier and funnier - the play-within-a-play finale is certainly the most hysterical version I’ve ever seen - and it’s impossible not to get carried away by the exuberance of it all. And what the hell, so what if it makes no sense.

Better yet, even though the contemporary nature of the production - and Baynton’s star appeal - make it undeniably ripe for a younger crowd (the 14-year-old with me loved it), there’s something here for everyone, whether you’re a fan of genuinely dramatic acting, high farce or even rapping, which was admittedly terrible (in a good way) as it introduced the terrible (in a good way) finale. And not to overwork my earlier reference, but the Dallas era is also represented by the show’s 80s-style music and even pop star lookalikes. I’m sure I spotted Robert Smith, Adam Ant and a Dexy’s Midnight Runner represented on stage, and with a bit of imagination (another ahem) I reckon you’ll see or conjure up a few others. Either that or this dream of a production had me hallucinating too.

Five stars

Reviewed by Steve Adams at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Straford-upon-Avon on Tuesday 13 February. A Midsummer Night's Dream continues to show at the venue until Saturday 30 March.