IMAGINE a rehearsal room made out of cardboard and paper – or health and safety gone mad in a 21st century classroom. Then experience it for real in Simon Jarvis's innovative design for the black-box Friargate Theatre.

All the props and costumes are made the same way too, save for the shiny metal headpieces for the fairy world, everything hanging on hooks beneath the company members' names: Mr Laughey and Mr McKeller, Ms James, Mrs Campbell, Miss Fincham, Miss Patten-Chatfield, Miss Jones and Miss Morley.

This name-tagging may in fact help to orientate Mark France's company in what the Well-fangled Theatre artistic director calls a gender-fluid casting policy for a bare-footed company in jogging pants and tops. Bill Laughey, for example, plays Theseus and Titania, thereby not only switching from ruling the Athenian court to the forest fairyland, but as part of Oberon and Titania's combative game-playing, the king and queen swap genders too as Josie Campbell becomes Oberon.

York Press:

Hattie Patten-Chatfield, left, Patricia Jones and Anna Rose James as the Rude Mechanicals in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Picture: Michael J Oakes

Lysander has become Lysandra (Claire Morley), adding to the desperation of the young lovers, Lysandra and Hattie Patten-Chatfield's Hermia (still female, please note, rather than Hismia), to break free of the Athenian court's rules and of the anger of her, um, father Egeus (Patricia Jones).

Keeping up with Jones, Nick Bottom is now her amusingly Geordie-voiced Nicki Bottom, now making an ass of herself, the humour flowing naturally, rather than being forced: always the sign of a good Shakespeare comedy production, here aided by Alexander King's sprightly guitar playing.

Likewise, the regular switches from playing members of the court to fairies or the rude mechanicals' acting troupe has a lovely, easy flow about it in France's exploration of Shakespeare's study of gender, sexuality, identity and performance.

The constantly alarmed sparring of Amy Fincham's Helena and Jamie McKeller's Demetrius adds to the enjoyment, while Morley is a knock-out as Lysandra with a thumping right hook.

Best of all is Anna Rose James's Puck, dangerous as much as mischievous, with delightful comic timing too, in a charming production that reminds you of the pleasures and risks of 'play': in this case, not child's play, but adult's play.

A Midsummer Night's Dream, Well-fangled Theatre, Friargate Theatre, York, tonight at 7.30pm; tomorrow, 2.30pm and 7.30pm. Box office: 01904 613000 or at ridinglights.org/midsummer-nights-dream/