Melbourne’s long-established outdoor Shakespeare specialists usually offer a comedy and a drama each summer. This season, perhaps acknowledging the dark times we’re living in, it’s all laughs – or at least that’s the intention.

Unfortunately, the undergraduate humour of Shakespeare’s Best Bits wears thin after a while, despite the cast’s energy, comic commitment and timing. In this mashup written and directed by Australian Shakespeare Company’s founder and Artistic Director, Glenn Elston, they play the amateur thespians of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Scott Jackson, Peter Houghton and Hugh Sexton in Shakespeare’s Best Bits. Photo © Ben Fon

These “rude mechanicals” have yet to choose their play for the Athenian king’s wedding. With help from the audience, Bottom (Peter Houghton), Starveling (Hugh Sexton), Snug (Maddie Somers), Flute (Alex Cooper) and Snout (Scott Jackson) persuade their leader, Peter Quince (Jackson McGovern), that they should consider options other than his original work, Pyramus and Thisbe.

They quickly workshop several plays by Shakespeare, starting with Macbeth. Alongside Punch and Judy-style puppet witches that pop above the rudimentary set, the cast romps around in tartan, including Houghton wearing little more...