It stars Derek Godfrey as Theseus, Barbara Jefford as Hippolyta, Diana Rigg as Helena, Helen Mirren as Hermia, David Warner as Lysander, Ian Holm as Puck, Ian Richardson as King Oberon, Judi Dench as Queen Titania, and Paul Rogers as Bottom, as well as other members of the Royal Shakespeare Company.

[1] In the U.S., it was sold directly to television rather than playing in theatres, and premiered as a Sunday evening special, on the night of 9 February 1969.

[7] Penelope Houston, reviewing the film for The Spectator, wrote:[8] Mr Hall's lovers … caper in their mini-skirts and flowered Beatle blouses … around a stately home so sparsely furnished that you feel the removal men are either assembling or dismantling.

But stage influences and scaling creep in: half the time … they might as well be running around one small studio-planted coppice, with another daub of mud slapped over their foreheads at the end of each circuit.

Make-up seems to present unlikely difficulties: Peaseblossom, Mustard Seed and their confreres … appear startlingly haggard, as though late nights ministering to Titania were taking their toll.