As we take our seats in the RSC’s outdoor theatre in the Swan Theatre Gardens I know this will be a very different experience. For a start we’re outside, very fitting for a story set in the Forest of Arden and at just eighty-five minutes long it’s a good hour shorter than traditional performances. Starting at five o’clock, the audience comprises more families than usual at a press night show.

What we haven’t anticipated is seeing an impressive one-man wrestling match. But then neither had the cast and creatives involved in staging this fast-paced funny production. Under Brendan O’Hea’s direction, despite difficult circumstances, the show really does go on and it delivers in spades.

Luke Brady plays a charming Orlando, who should be wrestling Charles (Peter Dukes) but due to an ankle injury performs his role seated throughout. Hence this very funny and brilliantly performed one-man wrestling match which helps set the mood for this production of As You Like It. Peter Dukes’ physicality is impressive.

The whole cast of excellent actor-musicians wryly work with Brady’s physical incapacity with knowing looks to each other and the audience, bringing out the humour of the situation.

As You Like It is a comedy, it’s also a romance subverting traditional rules with gender roles being switched. Nature and politics are confused in a play that reflects on how bewildering yet utterly pleasurable life can be. Particularly when love at first sight is involved.

Orlando meets and falls in love with beautiful and clever Rosalind (Letty Thomas). She’s companion to flighty Celia (Christina Tedders) at Duke Frederick’s court (played by Chris Nayak).

Of course, things aren’t straightforward. And this being Shakespeare things get a bit complicated, but this production helps keep the unfolding story easy to follow for young audience members. Even with actors taking on more than one role.

There’s banishment with Rosalind disguising herself as a boy, Ganymede and Celia becomes his sister Aliena. They persuade the fool Touchstone (a buffoonish Duncan Wisbey) to accompany them. And then there’s a lot of love poetry.

After hearing of a plot by his older brother, Oliver (Ned Derrington) to kill him, Orlando also flees to Arden and takes refuge with the exiled Duke Senior (also played by Peter Dukes). Orlando posts love lyrics throughout the forest and meets Rosalind disguised as Ganymede. She challenges his lovesick state and suggests that he should prove the strength of his love by wooing Ganymede as if he were Rosalind.

Letty Thomas allows Rosalind’s infatuation with Orlando to shine through with her light physical giddiness. The sparks fly with Luke Brady’s charming but seated Orlando.

Elsewhere in the Forest the shepherd Silvius (Chris Nayak) suffers unrequited love for Phoebe (Natasha Magigi another performer with a fantastic voice), who has fallen for Ganymede, while Touchstone is pursuing the goat-herd Audrey (the powerfully voiced Susannah Van Den Berg).

Trevor Fox plays the melancholic and philosophical Jaques who accompanied Duke Senior into exile. Delivering possibly the most famous speech in As You Like it – the Seven Ages of Man, which begins very aptly ‘All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players’

Of course, everything comes good with Oliver and Orlando reconciled. Oliver falls in love with Aliena. And Rosalind finally casts off her disguise to wed Orlando.

This production has a lovely sense of pace. The use of song and music enhances the storytelling and the whole cast excels in their dual roles. This is an ideal show to introduce new younger audiences to Shakespeare. It’s also going to be a favourite with devoted RSC audiences. Whether Luke Brady has to remain seated for the rest of this run remains to be seen. But based on this slightly unusual press night performance, this will be a popular family show.  

Photos credit Marc Brenner