As You Like It – Globe 2026 | Peter Viney's Blog

As You Like It – Globe 2026

By William Shakespeare

Directed by Sean Holmes and Charlie Josephine
Designed by Paul Wills
Composer Katie Richardson

CAST
Lola Shalam – Rosalind
Gracie Oddie-James – Celia
Colm Gormley- Duke Senior / Duke Frederick / Corin
Johnnie Broadbent- Touchstone

Charlie Josephine- Orlando
Thomas Josling – Oliver / Amiens
Jurell Carter – Charles / William
Peter Bourke – Adam / Oliver Martext
Jordan Rhys – Jaques de Boys / cover
Katie Richardson- Hymen
Inez Solomon-Gardner – ensemble / cover

Katherine Pearce – Jacques
Molly Madigan- Phoebe
Phoebe Naughton – Audrey
Busa Wickrmasuriya – Silvius

MUSIC
Katie Richardson – guitar, vocal, MD
Israel (Ola) Akindipe – Saxophone / clarinet
Louise Duggan – percussion
Beth Higham-Edwards – percussion
Emma King – percussion

It’s my problem comedy. This is the tenth since I started reviewing and I still can’t recite the plot accurately, which is why The Globe programme wisely did a longer synopsis than usual.

Sean Holmes likes high concept, and this is set in 18th Century costume, high-fashion Versailles Louis XIV costimes, perhas brighter, in the court scenes.

Paul Wills set is a shock when you go in. Bare white overlapping panels cover the fabric of the stage. Later, as they enter the Forest of Arden, these are painted on stage, first sketched trunks and branches, then dark green leaves. Lighter green are added in the interval, and finally fruit or flowers in red on the central tree.

I was in two minds about the set concept. The first thought is ’18th century? Then the highly decorated late 17th century background of the Globe works as it is. Those designs would still have been around in (e.g.) 1714.

The bare white panels make sense once it starts. The entire cast is on stage in the court / pre-forest scenes, dressed elaborately.

They form tableaux in the background in frozen poses. The star is the costume, and the plain white panels accentuate the figures in the tableaux.

*Strike a pose! Jordan Rhys & Inez Solomon-Gardner as courtiers*

Can you imagine holding those poses with gestures for several minutes? They did. Not a tremor. It’s serious background acting work. Tableaux were a popular feature of masques in Shakespeare’s time. I didn’t think of it at the time, but all the courtiers are male. Well, some are women dressed as male but given the wigs, moustaches and costume. they all look male. This isolates Rosalind and Celia. They’re the only women in the court.

The elaborate pomposity of Duke Frederick’s court makes a mighty contrast to his banished brother’s court under the trees in the Forest of Arden. It also looks fabulous. As You Know It, but I’ll remind you, Duke Frederick has usurped his brother, Duke Senior who is banished with his closest allies. Celia is Duke Frederick’s daughter and heir. Rosalind is Duke Senior’s daughter, so the rightful heir. They are best friends as well as first cousins.

Lola Shalam as Rosalind, Colm Gormley as Duke Frederick, Gracie Oddie-James as Celia

The costumes are deliberately over the top. One reviewer thought Rosalind and Celia lacked the girlish interaction of the cousins. They couldn’t get close enough to each other for starters, those skirts were two metres wide, and they were often placed far apart at opposite ends of the stage.

Within the concept, Orlando is the youngest son of Sir Roland de Boys, a deceased supporter of the old Duke Senior. His older brother Oliver is a courtier, and treats him like dirt, refusing him education (or sanitation). An aside, Boys is ‘woods’. The Sussex (?) village of Black Boys causes comment, but it was Black Bois – dark woods. The locals started pronouncing ‘bois’ as ‘boys’ and spelling followed. I noticed that Oliver’s courtly costume is in more restrained colours, his wig smaller, indicating the de Boys ~~boys~~ lads are not in total favour at the new court.

Throughout this production there are innovative and different character interpretations. So Charlie Josephine, who also co-directs with Sean Holmes, is Orlando. However this is a scruffy Orlando with advanced Estuary accent, wiv lines about his favver and muvver. Orlando as chirpy lovable The Artful Dodger, or Oliver Twist. There are no photos of Jurell Carter in his role as The Wrestler, Charles, a shame has his costume was extravagant. Charles is instructed by Oliver to try and kill Orlando. The actual wrestling is bare chested, and fades into bare knuckle boxing, and Orlando wins with what looks like a lucky chop to the windpipe. I’ve seen more elaborate matches. I believe Shakespeare’s company had long sword fights, and I bet the wrestling match was long and dramatic. Anyweay, a bit of bare chest wins Rosalind’s affections.

*Lola Shalan as Rosalind. The first entry of the cast is through the audience*

Lola Shalan is an extremely good Rosalind, without channeling any I’ve seen before. Incidentally, the costume on adverts and programmes, which were done months before never appears. As You Like It must have had a popularity peak in the 1920s and 1930s. Richmal Crompton’s William books have his sister Ethel competing for the role of Rosalind, the part all the local girls wanted so they could dress up as boys. This would have meant tights like a pantomime principal boy. That used to be a popular interpretation. She was Juliet last year in Sean Holmes’ Wild West version of Romeo & Juliet at the Globe. She has star quality, but she also has a distinctive face, non-conventional for a romantic heroine. It adds to her appeal. So when her wicked uncle Duke Frederick banishes her to the forest, and she claims her name is Ganymede, it’s an unconventional costume. Almost pirate or highwayman.

*Lola Shalan:* *Rosalind becomes Ganymede in the forest*

The forest is the core story. Orlando has been banished accompanied by Adam, the aged family retainer, with Oliver charged with finding him and killing him.

Charlie Josephine as Orlando, Peter Bourke as Adam

Rosalind has been banished, but Celia insists on accompanying her. Rosalind dresses as a man, Celia as a shepherdess, and the court jester, Touchstone decides his loyalty is to them, and he’ll come too.

*Charlie Josephine as Orlando, Lola Shalan as Ganymede. Celia watches in horror*

Orlando is lovestruck on Rosalind. Ganymede has the ruse of teaching him how to woo a woman. He doesn’t realise Ganymede is Rosalind, and is strangely moved when she teaches him. As You Know It (again), this is just about the best scene in the play, and this is as good as it gets. Neither look like romantic leads. I thought that enhanced it.

Celia is a marvellous role. It always works, as it’s a feast of reactive silent acting. The thing is, that Celia is going to be a shepherdess, Aliana, but being a princess, she has only seen shepherdesses on Meissen pottery or pastoral paintings or nursery rhymes, so her Aliana is dressed as Little Bo Peep.

*Gracie Oddie-James as Celi*a, *who has become Aliana*

Going out I heard people saying, ‘Aliana was absolutely hilarious!’ She was indeed a constant commentary with gestures to Ganymede, and it’s my common first reaction to the play to say how good Celia was. So I’ll say it again.

*Celia as Aliana, Jonnie Broadbent as Touchstone*

Touchstone is determined to come with them. He is played by Jonnie Broadbent. A few years ago we were at the RSC As You Like It and Jonnie was in the audience a couple of seats away. We were standing next to him in the interval, and I broke my rule and complimented him on his previous roles. We had a ten minute chat, which bore out what actors have told me, he is just about the most pleasant and friendly person in the profession. He is gifted with likability, which makes him a perfect Shakespeare clown. He is also a natural leader. He is the one appointed to address audiences when things go wrong and an announcement is needed – we’ve seen that at the RSC and The Globe.

He knows exactly how to balance the line. The clown should adlib, but also do the lines. Productions tend to either do too much adlibbing or too little. He gets in the one about a weak joke being excusable because it’s four hundred years old, but also mentions things that happen, pauses for the inevitable helicopter and mentions the pigeons that fly about undaunted in Globe performances. Touchstone got his clothes ripped off him by the courtiers when he decided to leave, so is down to undershorts and a ruff. Touchstone tends to be heavily cut as some of the lines are hard to carry off. Jonnie Broadbent CAN carry them off which is why we got more Touchstone than usual. If you get to see it, the adlib line that had me nearly fall off my seat laughing was when Touchstone runs into the Reverend Oliver Martext (Peter Bourke). No giveaways.

Phoebe Naughton as Audrey, Jurell Carter as William

In the forest he falls in love with Audrey (Phoebe Naughton ) who is betrothed to William (Jurell Carter). During the closing betrothals and pairings, Touchstone and Audrey having a boisterous embrace at the back, with her legs scissored around him.

There are two excellent rural girls, Audrey (Phoebe Naughton) and Phoebe (Molly Madigan). While Touchstone is bent on getting Audrey, Phoebe sets her sights on Ganymede, believing Ganymede to be a man. Silvius is the rural swain in love with her. In this production, as ever we have four good funny female roles. Yes, the whole play is based on gender confusion, with Orlando being turned on by Ganymede, as is Phoebe. That’s part of the reason we didn’t book the current RSC As You Like It this autumn. It’s all male (but not authentic practices) and there’s plenty enough gender confusion already, which is enhanced by it working both ways. Yes, As You Know It, Ganymede was Jupiter’s male cup bearer / lover so the choice of name sets more confusion.

Let’s add a fifth female role. Jaques, one of Duke Senior’s followers. This philosopher / poet is not as melancholy as most versions. Jacques is played by Katharine Pearce. We have seen a female Jacques before, but she plays it as a man … until Ganymede gets suspicious and removes her moustache revealing that she’s also a woman disguised as a man. That’s a novel twist. So we get less moping. Jacques has the Seven Ages of Man speech, the equivalent for actors of to be or not to be. How do you do it? Do you try to be novel? Intone it as seriously as you can? Do you add gestures and actions? It was done well, and fortuitously she had just reached the end when the inevitable helicopter came to have a look at The Globe.

The other major role is Duke Senior, as usual doubled with Duke Frederick, and played by Colm Gormley. They tripled him as Corin as well (probably based on his power as a singer and ability to get the crowd going), and I think they needed a stronger costume difference. As the Duke he has his crown of twigs. He brings us to music.

*The Forest cast, Lola Shalam as Ganymede centre, Molly Madigan as Phoebe to our right*

There is a lot of music and it’s the play with most songs. You have words, but every production does new tunes and styles. Actually, if I were doing it, I’d use Laura Marling’s versions from the RSC in 2013. Here Katie Richardson is composer, MD, guitarist and singer, and takes the stage with guitar for the part of Hymen. With three percussionists the musicians convey involvement and that they’re having a really good time too with all the percussion.

Two songs are sung by Amiens (Thomas Josling):

Katie Richardson (programme): Blow Blow Thou Winter Winds and Under The Greenwood Tree are most similar as they’re both sung by the same character, Amiens. I thought about the actor’s voice (which is really beautiful) and how he might sing it as the character.

She also has two genuinely lead singers in Colm Gormley as Duke Senior / Corin and Phoebe Naughton as Audrey. Phoebe Naughton could take the lead in a soul musical! Then all the cast are capable of joining in at full voice.

The play ends with Jacques de Boys, the middle brother, bringing news of Duke Frederick’s conversion to the religious life, a touch of J.D. Vance maybe. It niggles in my brain, but was Shakespeare not focussing or are the texts faulty? He has two characters called Jacques in the play, and two characters called Oliver in the play. He needed an editor.

It’s different. It’s the fourth excellent Globe comedy of 2026. There haven’t been many years recently where you could say that. Four stars, and the high end of four stars at that.

****

ON THE GLOBE THIS WEEK

Later season, though it has over a month to run. It was a much less crowded standing area, and with plenty of empty seats downstairs in the premium area.

I’ll bet those seats were hard to get in July or August. Have they considered dropping the premium prices out of the main season and getting more people in?

The monitoring wasn’t good. We saw a woman, and a couple in the standing area. They were watching the stewards carefully and seized a point where they were otherwise engaged to grab seats in Bay J. You can tell usually people who don’t have cushions and spend 5 minutes in the standing area then don’t look at seat numbers. It’s not my role to police people, they enjoyed it very much, they were lucky. But if you’re going to charge such high prices you can’t just let it go. A steward noticed a man in Bay J after the interval who wasn’t there before and asked to see his ticket. The guy said something about ‘What does it matter? It’s empty’ then stalked out of the theatre altogether. The stewards have a hard job and they’re volunteers and do it well in a polite and friendly way. It would be so easy to give them an iPad between them with the latest booked seats plan. It’s constantly updated online.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAID
In August- Globe plays take a break and come back

five star (100%)
Phoebe Taplin, The Reviews Hub – 100%
Sebastian Calver, London Theatre Reviews *****

four star
Andrez Lukowski, Time Out ****
Miriam Sallon, What’s On Stage ****
Clementine Scott, Broadway World ****
Cathie, Theatre & Tonic ****

three star
Arifa Akbar, Guardian ***
Kirsten Grant, Telegraph ***
Sphen Gilchrist- Theatre Weekly ***
Phil Meikle- All That Dazzles ***
Oli Burgin, West End Best Friend ***

LINKS ON THIS BLOG

AS YOU LIKE IT
As You Like It RSC 2013
As You Like It, Globe 2015
As You Like It, National Theatre, 2015
As You Like It, Globe 2018
As You Like It, RSC 2019
As You Like It, RSC 2023
As You Like It, Globe 2023
As You Like It, RSC 2024
As You Like It, Ralph Fiennes season, Bath 2025
As You Like It, Globe 2026