Theatre review: As You Like It (RSC/RST)

Shakespeare plays run to a schedule similar to buses', so less than a month after the Globe's latest production confirmed why As You Like It is my favourite of the comedies, half the Artistic Director of the RSC comes along with his own take on why this is one of the most joyous of the plays. Not that Daniel Evans' production starts that way, with a monochrome design in which Colin Richmond's costumes in fascist black contrast with the clinical whiteness of Anisha Fields' set. This is the tyrannical domain of a Duke (Gary Wilmot) who recently ousted his own brother, and who entertains himself organising wrestling tournaments where fatalities are considered par for the course. Orlando (Elliot Barnes-Worrell,) a young nobleman also disinherited by his brother Oliver (Caleb Roberts,) takes his chances, and not only survives but wins the match - only for the Duke to banish him.

Orlando does impress the Duke's daughter Celia (Fisayo Akinade) though, and even more so her beloved cousin Rosalind (Jonathan Groff,) who falls for him instantly. But she also gets banished, and both she - in disguise as a young man - and Orlando end up in the same forest where her father (also Wilmot) now lives.

If the Globe production took its time taking us through the seasons, the RSC's makes a much sharper contrast, Fields' set turning instantly from white to rolling green Welsh hills. This being the most musical of Shakespeare's plays, this location means Evans can use his all-male production to turn the shepherds into a male voice choir, a rousing soundtrack that also means the audience are unsuspecting when Audrey's (Gareth Snook) turn to do a song turns out to be Raye's "Where Is My Husband?"

Audrey is part of the four couples who spend the second half of the play in a convoluted dance of confused lovers - with varying levels of enthusiasm - leading up to a group wedding. She's paired up with the clown Touchstone, whom Greg Haiste makes funny enough although really bringing out how mean-spirited the character can be. Elsewhere I enjoyed the characterisations though - Richard McCabe's louche Jaques, Tim Preston's prim and pinched Phoebe being pursued by Edward Judge's puppyish Silvius.

There's a little added Welshness in turning Sir Oliver into Sir Osian and William into Gwilym (both Steffan Harri,) while there's even a line right there in the text that gets used to question why Groff is the only one with an American accent. In a twist I've only seen done once before, Oliver even figures out Rosalind's gender-bending secret and tells his brother, a reading that makes so much sense of some of the lines in the following scene.

Groff has great chemistry with Barnes-Worrell which makes the increasingly silly central romance work, but more importantly he has it with Akinade as well: The latter's casting as Celia was something I was as excited about as Groff's and he proves me right, delivering all the mix of entitlement, kindness and sassiness that the character can steal the show with. He and Groff spark off each other in a relationship as earnest as it is full of teasing, and Akinade gets the biggest laughs in a production that's hardly short of them.

With all the gender-bending going on the show even has Orlando get married in a kilt just to confuse things even further, and even though pairing Le Beau (Giles Cooper) up with Amiens (Luke McCall) at the end comes completely out of nowhere, it also feels inevitable that there should be a queer pairing in there somewhere. As You Like It doesn't stand up to any scrutiny that tries to make sense of it at the best of times though and Evans has done a good job of pairing Groff's star power with a production that will surely win over all but the harshest Shakespeare skeptics.

As You Like It by William Shakespeare is booking until the 7th of November at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon.

Running time: 2 hours 40 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Marc Brenner.