As You Like It, RSC, Stratford - review with pictures
It's been said of some stagings of As You Like It – a play about love that ends with four weddings – that you couldn't see the wooed for the trees.
Not so here. The action may be set largely in the Forest of Arden but there's not a twig in sight.
The play's most famous line 'All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players' is reflected in the setting which is just that, a bare stage.
The penny doesn't drop until the action switches to Arden and suddenly the house lights go up, rails of costumes are wheeled on, the musicians start noisily tuning up and Antony Byrne, who plays both dukes, strips to his underpants in front of us to don his forest clothes. All the world's a stage, including, erm, the stage.
The house lights remain up and we, the audience, are pulled into the action with winks, nods and knowing smiles from the cast. Actors jump down into the the stalls at the drop of a hat whilst, in turn, audience members are enticed on to the stage for a comic stunt just before the interval.
We needed the Forest of Arden. The austerity of the court, where the early action takes place, seems to take its toll – even the wrestling match between Orlando and Charles is lacklustre.
The sense of liberation in nature felt by the exiled characters when they move to the forest is in no one more keenly witnessed than in Lucy Phelps' Rosalind who revels in her boy disguise, winning us over with her energy, warmth and wit.
David Ajao gives us a likeable lovesick Orlando, who is never more attractive than when he shimmies into the forest to the sound of a calypso beat ready to woo his Rosalind.
Sophie Khan Levy is an absolute delight as Celia, Rosalind's cousin and confidante. Engaging but subtle, she can steal a scene without opening her mouth.
Touchstone, Shakespeare's notoriously tedious fool, is instead highly entertaining in the hands of Sandy Grierson. Dressed in lurex and yellow tartan with an egghead hairdo – looking like a cross between Max Wall and Noddy Holder – he doesn't rely on the outfit for laughs.
Touchstone's love interest is a fringe part but deaf-signing actor Charlotte Arrowsmith brings the house down as the rampant Audrey.
Director Kimberley Sykes finally gives us a set – with a big wow factor – for the joyous conclusion of the play.
Runs until August 31.
