As You Like It at Shakespeare’s Globe – review

In contrast to most other Shakespeare plays, I wouldn’t bother reading a synopsis beforehand as you’ll only be more confused: Two duke brothers, one usurping the other, another set of three brothers, their father an enemy of the usurping duke, the oldest bullying the youngest (where is the third?) who, while wrestling the usurper’s wrestler, falls in love at first sight with the usurped duke’s daughter. They all end up fleeing to the woods where they meet a whole new bunch, and so forth. Best let the myriad plots and subplots reveal themselves; your homework will not serve you.

While As You Like It is technically a comedy, I find that often simply means it’s a silly one rather than legitimately funny. But the Globe has a knack, unmatched, for finding the humour where other productions lumber past, and this production is no exception.

Lola Shalam is an ideal casting for courtly, lovesick teenager Rosalind, having already proven herself worthy as last year’s Juliet, gushing and blushing, delivering well-worn dialogue as quickfire banter with Romeo’s Rawaed Asde. 

While there’s plenty of back-and-forth with Charlie Josephine’s Orlando, Rosalind’s love-at-first-sight, it’s Shalam’s friendship with Gracie Oddie-James‘ Celia that feels particularly alive. They might not pass the Bechdel test – there’s an awful lot of chat about boys – but Celia and Rosalind’s friendship is central to the plot, and feels more important than the various romantic couplings, though there are many. Shalam and Oddie-James have a particularly fizzing chemistry, making their dialogue feel contemporary and relaxed. 

Shalam and Oddie-James are a highlight, but they by no means steal the show: The plot is filled with an array of ancillary characters, and where in other productions they would be at best forgettable, at worst an added confusion to the already muddled plot, here they bring more joy: Peter Bourke commits entirely as Orlando’s endearing but decrepit servant. As Orlando flees for his life, Bourke trails glacially behind, “Master, go on; and I will follow thee”, bringing Orlando’s hasty exit to a stutter, eventually lying face down in the middle of the stage for 20 minutes while other characters gently hop over his near-corpse. 

Similarly, Molly Madigan’s Phoebe, along with her desperate lover Silvius (Busa Wickramasuriya), serve as comic relief, rendering themselves entirely pointless by definition. However, Madigan’s portrayal is so bolshy, her eye rolls and lustful gaze so well timed that by the end, the couple feels as vital as any leading part. 

It takes quite a performer to keep even a shred of dignity when his costume is literally torn from his body in the first five minutes, remaining throughout in merely a ruff and very short breeches. Jonnie Broadbent as Touchstone the Fool is such a performer, entirely at home striding around in kitten heels, a three-point wig atop his rosy-cheeked head. While he begins, as most of Shakespeare’s fools, as a smug, silly aside, he ends as a fully fleshed character, and we find ourselves entirely devoted to his happy ending.

Paul Wills’ stage design is charming in theory: huge blank canvases lean against the back walls, later filled in with quick charcoal drawings of trees to portray the banished duke’s forest, finished with roller-painted leaves. But it would take a very talented crew of artists to create a forest so deftly and casually, and instead it’s left to an enthusiastic cast of actors scribbling in the background, and it ends up looking like a primary school project.

It’s a shame, but not a crying one, because in the first half, still at court, Wills’ Roccoco-style costumes are so ridiculously lavish – two-foot wigs covered in bouncing curls, dress hoops so large that Shalam and Oddie-James must turn sideways to pass one another – we’ve no need for anything else to distract the eye. And in the second half, we are entirely at the performance’s disposal, and the backdrop is neither here nor there.

The music, as always at the Globe, is the cherry on top. Composer Katie Richardson combines influences from all over: xylophones and marching drums are joined by saxophone, clarinet, bells, guitar and vocals. Yet somehow it feels cohesive and, as with the play’s dialogue, makes Shakespeare’s lyrics feel fresh.

When the Globe puts its best foot forward, the audience doesn’t just leave feeling sated, but that they have witnessed the culmination of an immense community effort. So it is with As You Like It, a perfect pageant to see us past the end of summer.