REVIEW: As You Like It, Southwark Playhouse ✭✭✭

As You Like It

Southwark Playhouse

19 September 2014

3 Stars

'As You Like It’ is a play that I’m not entirely sure about. In fact, I’m just going to come out and say it. (Shakespeare has been dead for a fair few years now, so it’s not as if he’s about to passive-aggressively unfollow me on twitter or anything like that.)

‘As You Like It’ is not, in my opinion, Will’s best work. Being, as I am, gushy and romantic about the supposed life and times of our beloved Bard, let's assume that he simply had more interesting things to attend to whilst penning this particular play. Perhaps he had an unreasonable deadline... or a hangover, maybe? Let’s imagine that Will accidentally dropped the pages of four new masterpieces on one unexpectedly blustery day in the city, and haphazardly bound them together again, constructing, in doing so, 'As You Like It' - a rambling, bitty comedy with characters whose fates lie with an irrational Duke, whose temperament is as changeable as the weather depicted by the play itself.

But we soon forgive Shakespeare for his plot holes in this instance; after all ‘As You Like It’ is one of the most frequently quoted plays in the cannon, what with its "All the world’s a stage" speech in Act II scene VII. The ingredients for a fine, albeit it chock-a-block, comedy are all there: two brothers - as alike as pickle and jam; two maidens - one bookie and tall, the other sprightly and short; disguise and trickery; the liberating forest: a fool, etc etc. The play’s poetry, and Rosalind’s kick arse championing of wise women, deliver more than enough satisfaction for the word hungry audience member too.

Much like the scatty unbridled comedy itself then, my thoughts on this production are a varied and tangled mess of contradictions. For the play’s numerous subplots and seemingly random diversions, it is a huge credit to director Derek Bond for mustering a masterfully pellucid rendering of the story. However, the production too takes the audience on a wildly unpredictable theatrical adventure. Over the course of two hours we journey across some hazardous terrain - through the dry, unimaginative and into the joyous and intoxicating - with some stop-offs more successful than others on route. The opening twenty minutes are starved of colour, music or humour. This comes as a surprise following the show’s cheeky publicity and even cheekier prologue, delivered by Simon Lipkin as Touchstone - the fool. These initial greys are lightened only, and perhaps unintentionally, by Minal Patel’s entrance as Charles the Wrestler wearing what appears to be a woman’s coat and a Tarzan outfit.

Still I remained hopeful; after all, it’s not like the Southwark Playhouse to leave its patrons wanting more. And guess what? The payoff comes, and it is exceptional. Putting an end to ploddy dreariness, the sighs of a Cello and the first flakes of snow make their way onto stage, serving to reignite an audience who until now drowned in exposition. The transition from Court to the Forest of Arden, with white paper hailing down upon the heads of our saddened voyagers, accompanied by the sweet sinews of Jude Obermuller’s original score, is a moment of such breath taking beauty that all that proceeds is forgotten and I, in effect, start again. I longed for theatrical magic and happily found myself in Narnia.

Then, with the falling green paper of summer, comes the play’s fun and frivolity. Lipkin could say his own name and be funny, but he breathes the life into this production when he appears with Audrey, the inebriated sheep puppet. And it’s not just the playful Lipkin either; there’s a wonderfully funny turn from Joanna Hickman as a West Country Phebe. Phebe is arguably one of Shakespeare’s more pointless characters, but her presence is ultimately validated by Hickman’s brilliant, snotty performance - not to mention Rosalind’s hilarious quip: “Sell when you can: You are not for all markets.”

The play’s peaks and troughs, giggles and yawns, continue, but as mixed as this production is, the multi-talented cast remain consistent. Harry Livingstone plays disgruntled younger brother, turned poet and lover, Orlando de Boys. Livingstone has a serene countenance, a wistful charm and a delectable naturalism - not to mention a secret smile for Rosalind that warms even us with the coldest of hearts to him. Sally Scott also packs a lovable punch as Rosalind - at her best in her moustached guise as a “saucy lackey,” testing and schooling her lover - reminding him that, when it comes to women, “The wiser, the waywarder.”

PS in short: So, it’s a review of two halves for 'As You Like It' - a play that pendulums from bland to bold and bleak to bright - but is absolutely worth seeing, for, if anything, ten beautiful performances and a delectable Shakespearean escape from London’s gloomy September.

As You Like It runs at Southwark Playhouse until 18 October 2014

Photos: Robert Workman