They are a Dad’s Army collection, with Flute (Steven O’Neill) definitely taking the Private Pike role.Director, designer and lighting dominate this attractive Dream. The best performance comes from the huskily regal Amanda Harris, playing Hippolyta and Titania. Dozens of large flickering lightbulbs create dappled light on the forest floor; and the upturned pink-cushioned umbrella, the bed in which Titania and Oberon spend the night, is probably on loan from Hugh Hefner The mechanicals are delineated with cartoon-like clarity. It looks, too, as if most of the production had been sketched in before anyone entered the rehearsal room. Each of the four lovers wears a different coloured outfit (blue, green, orange and purple) Puck and a Fairy descend hanging from green umbrellas. Thoughtful, tender and engaging, his play creates memorable stage pictures of its own.There’s a delightful Caran D’ Ache atmosphere in Adrian Noble’s user- friendly production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which returns to the Barbican, prior to a world tour.

It’s as if Noble, designer Anthony Ward and lighting designer Chris Parry have unpacked a large box of the expensive Swiss crayons, and decided, to hell with it, let’s use the lot. He knocks on the door of Baeza’s family home, in search of egg white which he needs for his work. With his prosperous brown pinstripe and readily appreciative manner, he immediately arouses their suspicions. Rightly so.The 15th-century painting Jesson restores not only shows the Flight into Egypt but also reveals (in the background) the contemporaneous Massacre of the Innocents.

It’s all too rare.The play, which takes place before, during and after the war, takes its title from a 15th-century painting that Ryszard, a Polish academic (Paul Jesson), is restoring. Garner adroitly links the parallel of flight and massacre across the centuries, as well as the theme of the redeeming power of art. He walks her round and round the kitchen table to relieve her cramp He gives her a wash-basin. He lies on the bed with his head turned away while she washes and changes He gives her food and new clothes.

Then he helps Baeza back into her hideout and replaces the panel.O’Neill and Baeza do not exchange a word In Cracow in 1942 protecting Jews carried the death penalty. The actors draw us into a silent world of dependence and care, where survival depends on the smallest detail. O’Neill and Baeza, directed with considerable nerve by John Dove, catch this tense absorption in an activity that is habitual but fraught with danger. A taciturn young janitor, Krasinski, excellently played by Con O’Neill, bolts the door of his basement flat, pulls away a panel from the wall and helps a Jewish girl, Beile (Paloma Baeza, making an impressive stage debut), out from her hiding place O’Neill takes her slop bucket and gives her another. Julian Garner has a talent for depicting character through suspenseful action that develops as we watch. The West End doesn’t specifically need serious or un-serious plays It needs West End plays.