FOUR STARS

 

As a critic mightily impressed, as many others at Stratford weren’t, by director Maria Aberg’s eccentric take on Shakespeare’s rarely seen King John, I am delighted to see her building on this success 12 months later with a near-flawless RSC production of a Shakespeare play at the opposite end of the popularity spectrum.

The compelling feature of King John was the potent sexual chemistry displayed between Alex Waldmann, a former pupil of Oxford’s Cherwell School, as the eponymous monarch, and Pippa Nixon as The Bastard, this character having undergone a gender-swap. These two actors share the same riveting rapport in Aberg’s new As You Like It, with Waldmann as the love-lorn Orlando this time wallowing in mutual passion with Ms Nixon’s Rosalind.

Of course, it is the great comic conceit of the play that he should be doing this while his beloved is supplying her impersonation of the shepherd boy Ganymede, complete with a prominent ‘thing’ in her tight trousers, thoughtfully pushed there by the clown Touchstone (Nicolas Tennant) You will recall that it is Ganymede’s bizarre contention that Orlando’s wooing him in this way will somehow cure him of his lovesickness. In this artlessly plotted play, it is as idle to ask why this should be so as to ponder why Rosalind, safe in the woodland domain of her father, the banished Duke (Cliff Burnett), still feels that she must hide her identity and that of cousin Celia (Joanna Horton).

The exiled aristocrat is famously likened to Robin Hood by the wrestler Charles (Mark Holgate), shortly before this favourite of the thuggish usurping duke (John Stahl) gets his come-uppance from Orlando. Their bout is thrillingly presented here, incidentally, with fight director Malcolm Ranson showing how the strapping pugilist might — just might — have been worsted by his much smaller, if markedly better muscled, opponent.

One thinks more drippy hippy than merry men, however, in terms of his companions in the Forest of Arden, whose dress styles suggest men (and women) more at home at a seventies pop festival than a medieval tournament. This is certainly the case with the doomy Jaques (Oliver Ryan), a man so laid back as to be nearly horizontal. In a revival characterised by the excellence of the verse-speaking, his lazy diction is noticeably hard to follow, save in a well-done ‘seven ages’ speech, which we all know anyway.

Sets-wise, this is an impressive production, with designer Naomi Dawson expanding the peat-lined pit of the wrestling match to present a dark and fertile forest floor. Above tower in revolving clusters tall, straight timbers, through which are funnelled shafts of sunshine (lighting, James Farncombe).

Between the trees, where Orlando has earlier nailed doting doggerel to his mistress, are strung the gaily coloured lights that help transform the glade into a venue suitable for the celebration of their happy union and those of shepherd Silvius (Michael Grady-Hall) and his Phoebe (Natalie Klamar), and Touchstone with the appalling goatherd Audrey (Rosie Hilal). As Laura Marling’s folksy jigs are played, the company capers in what is now well established as a trademark conclusion to an RSC show.

Until September 28. Box office: 0844 800 1110, rsc.org.uk