Performer: Gemma Ní Bhriain

Rain cannot wash away the charm of Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Lismore Castle, a visually clever, if uneven, outdoor staging with moments of real enchantment.

Jack Furness turns Faust into an Oppenheimer-type scientist in a powerful, well-sung staging in Dublin's Gaiety Theatre. 

Tara Erraught stars as the eponymous heroine with Anna Devin as her nemesis Elizabeth I in Donizetti's Maria Stuarda, but Tom Creed's modern update fails to convince at the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin.