As You Like It at the RSC - ★★★★★

In the programme for this staging of As You Like It, the RSC extends the audience an invitation ‘to escape from the city and flee to the country, where love in all its forms is explored and celebrated’. What is this? Some misplaced, modern reinterpretation of our beloved culture twisted to pander to the wokerati? Nuh-uh, this is Shakespeare as Shakespeare intended.

The Buggery Act 1533 forbade certain physical acts, whether conducted between men or between man and woman. Same-sex relationships, meanwhile, were frequently explored in literature. Shakespeare addressed his sonnets, written in the 1590’s and divulging an intense love, to a ‘fair youth’. 1590 saw the first publication of Thomas Lodge’s cross-dressing, pastoral romance Rosalynde, featuring Ganymede. During the 1590s, the character name Ganymede featured in several works by different authors and, such were Ganymede’s pre-occupations, the word became an accepted term for a male sex worker.

Rosalynde was reissued in 1598, the year before that great borrower and reinventor, William Shakespeare, wrote As You Like It. The meaning of ‘Ganymede’ would certainly have been known to him, and his use of it no oversight. And, of course, at the time, men cross-dressing to play female roles was the norm in England. Shakespeare seems, most deliberately, to have been determined to have some fun with both.

We are told at school that Shakespeare is timeless and eternally relevant because he addresses core human emotions and universal experiences, unchanged since the dawn of time. In a dry reading and in some performances, that can be hard to see. However, when gender identity and equal rights are hot topics, a play exploring gender norms, identity, and societal expectations was never more relevant.

Here’s how it goes down:

In a plot setup that will surprise … well, no one who has ever studied a Shakespeare play or read a crib-note, there’s been a usurping. The rightful leader, Duke Senior, has been overthrown by his younger brother, Duke Frederick, and exiled to Arden.

Duke Senior’s daughter, Rosalind, has been kept at court as company for her ‘cuz’ Celia but is now seen as a growing threat to the bad Duke. Gadzooks. She too must be exiled. Celia loves Rosalind, insists on accompanying her, and suggests finding the good Duke.

As exile can be a dangerous place for two young women, Rosalind dresses as a boy, taking the name Ganymede. Celia takes the role of Ganymede’s sister, Aliena, though those eyes aren’t always saying “sisterly love”. They persuade the court fool Touchstone to accompany them. Hey ho, hey ho, it’s off to Arden they go.

Not, however, before Rosalind meets Orlando and the pair fall instantly in love. Plot twist: Orlando has been mistreated by his elder brother, Oliver, and also finds himself, shock horror, fleeing into exile with an elderly servant, Adam.

As good fortune and a contrived plot would have it, everyone arrives in Arden. In an entirely normal, non-threatening, non-obsessive, non-stalkery way, Orlando plasters the forest’s trees with poetry about his overwhelming love for Rosalind. Then Orlando, Ganymede and Aliena meet by chance.

Like Superman to Lois, Ganymede is utterly unrecognisable to the Rosalind-obsessed (and presumably short-sighted) Orlando. Quite reasonably, when Ganymede suggests Orlando practise his wooing on Ganymede, Orlando is well up for it.

Jolly japes ensue, the bad become good, the good remain good, and nearly everyone falls in love and marries. The End.

If this all sounds ridiculous, well, of course it is. But what’s even more ridiculous is the amount of talent involved on and off stage in this production.

Anisha Field (set designer) contrasts a stark, bare, cruel black-and-white court with a piece of rolling, verdant, green hillside, down and across which our merry wanderers travel. The music by Theo Jamieson artfully and subtly reinforces the contrast: harsh at court; gloriously melodic, mostly Welsh-language a cappella, in the heavenly Arden. Rhys Parry Jones’s soulful, sonorous voice as a Lord in Arden, with a very talented ensemble in support, makes for a dreamy soundscape.

Everyone on stage is magnificent in their role or roles. Singling out individual cast members is difficult, but some special mentions are required.

Firstly, to Gary Wilmot. If you remember him from his breakthrough on New Faces in 1976 and already love him for his light entertainment years, prepare to be blown away by his RSC debut. As bad Duke Frederick, he is a bald, Star Trek: The Next Generation or Doctor Who rogue alien ruler in black. As good Duke Senior, he is a tousled-haired, bare-chested, smiling cherub of a man.

Wilmot is not the only RSC debut. Jonathan Groff (Rosalind/Ganymede) is the face on the programme and is a knock-out – a sexy, gender-bending tour de force delivering his lines with panache, a devastating twinkle, and quite a bit of saliva. Fisayo Akinade as Celia/Aliena is the perfect foil: quieter, more subtle but so feminine with perfect mannerisms and comic timing. Both leads move with grace and faint with aplomb.

Gareth Snook’s hilarious, stellar, show-stealing turn as Audrey will linger long in the memory. Tim Preston is an endearing and hilarious Phoebe, expressing more with some side-eye and a twitch of the mouth than Shakespeare could have hoped.

Then there are the RSC regulars. Greg Haiste’s Touchstone is part Rik Mayall and wholly perfect, while Richard McCabe as Jaques brings fresh depth and pathos to the famous ‘All the world’s a stage’ speech. All of the diction, come to that, is crystal clear and easy to understand from the outset, which must mean that Patsy Rodenburg and Paula Stephens (voice) and Dr Will Tosh (Dramaturg) (yes, I had to look that up, so you can too) should not be overlooked where praise is being dished out.

The costumes are perfectly conceived and executed, contributing to the personalities of each character and the immense, kind humour of the piece. Audrey’s DMs might yet prove to be the pinnacle of costume designer Colin Richmond’s work.

Llongyfarchiadau iawn (huge congratulations) to director Daniel Evans. This production of As You Like It is bold, joyful, crowd-pleasing stuff, addressing timeless human emotions in a thoroughly modern but authentically Shakespearean way. If the bard could see it, he would assuredly not just like it but love it.