Peter Viney's Blog

By William Shakespeare

Directed by Brendan O’Hea
Set & Costume by Liam Bunster
Composer Catherine Jayes

Royal Shakespeare Company
The Holloway Garden Theatre
Stratford-upon-Avon

Wednesday 14th August 2024, 14.00

CAST
Luke Brady- Orlando
Ned Derrington – Oliver / Corrin
Peter Dukes – Charles / Duke Senior
Trevor Fox – Jacques / William
Natasha Magigi – Phoebe / Amiens
Chris Nayak- Silvius / Duke Frederick
Christine Tedders- Cecilia
Letty Thomas- Rosalind
Susannah Van Den Berg – Audrey / Le Beau
Rachel Winters – Off Stage Cover
Duncan Wisbey – Touchstone / Adam

The Holloway Garden Theatre was erected behind The Swan Theatre for The Comedy of Errors, during Covid, then dismantled. They were right to keep the bits, especially as much of the work was installing a foundation on a soggy water meadow. It’s also good to do a shortened, snappy comedy. They’ve cut it to 80 minutes. Visitors may want to see a play without booking months in advance or sitting through a full length King Lear. It’s a good summer innovation and the price is good too. The programme matches, by having a Shakespeare bio, and clear descriptions of each character rather than a solemn essay.

My drama tutor described open-air Shakespeare as ‘Whimsy cult in the Wet.’ There was no Globe on the South Bank in those days. The Holloway Garden Theatre is totally open air, no galleries like the Globe, no ceiling over a part of the stage like the Globe. My iPhone reckoned there was little or no chance of rain. Less than 1 mm in the next 24 hours, if any. The night before it said no rain, and it started in earnest about 200 yards from our hotel on the way back from Pericles. So being hardened whimsy cult in the wet patrons (Karen has performed on Brownsea Island and has the mosquito bite scars to prove it), we took macs, rain ponchos, a towel and a few yards of plastic used for dust sheeting when you decorate.

And it rained non-stop throughout the performance. The RSC was doing a roaring trade in rain ponchos at £3 a shot. We had a Bourbon Street New Orleans poncho, unused since 2014.

The thing is, rain is unwelcome, but appropriate. Read Richmal Crompton’s Just William series. As You Like It was the AmDram play that his sister Ethel and her friends always wanted to do, competing to play Rosalind. Wearing trousers was really cool in the 1920s and 1930s. It was probably the most popular Am Dram play of the era, and audiences would have got wet all over the country. In this some of the cast had macs designed to go with their costumes. Celia had a creamy yellow mac, probably because her costume frills and flounces were the hardest to dry. Orlando and Rosalind just got wet.

The back of the set is a series of doors, and while they were playing the music, they stood in them. You don’t expose double basses, violins or acoustic guitars to the rain. It’s very much “Watermill” style in that every actor also turns their hand to an instrument. There’s a fair bit of Globe / Wanamaker / Watermill experience in the cast.

Everyone in the cast has head mics, and there are central speakers suspended in the air. Sound was crystal clear. Not only that every single member of the cast has articulation, clarity and projection. That’s a rarity.

Just as an orchestra has a conductor and a ‘leader’ you need the same in open air theatre because the unforeseen will happen. Jonathan Broadbent took the role when they did The Comedy of Errors here (and also at The Globe this year in Much Ado About Nothing,) This time it’s Chris Nayak who has the job with his RSC experience seniority. He’s a confident natural for it, as well as doubling Duke Frederick and Silvius.

He explained that Luke Brady, playing Orlando, had a broken foot in a boot, and so the wrestling match would be done solo by Charles The Wrestler (Peter Dukes, doubling with Duke Senior). It was belting by the time they got to the wrestling … a lot sooner than usual. They had to stop and sweep the stage of water before it, and also try to mop the centre with towels. It was worth the wait for the one man wrestling match. One of the funniest things this year.

The pace at the beginning brings the plot out sharply and clearly. Duke Frederick has usurped his brother, Duke Senior. His daughter Celia is best friends with her cousin Rosalind.

Frederick exiles Rosalind as Duke Senior’s daughter, and Celia decides to go with her and escape to the Forest of Arden. Touchstone, the court jester will accompany them. Rosalind will disguise herself as a boy, Ganymede for safety.

Meanwhile, Orlando finds that his older brother Oliver, who won’t share his inheritance plans to burn his house with Orlando in it. Orlando decides to flee to the Forest of Arden, with Adam, the loyal old gardener. They will meet Duke Senior and his band of kindly outlaws in the forest. They get through all this clearly at speed.

We’ve had a problem with Rosalind and Orlando ever since we saw Pippa Nixon and Alex Waldmann in the roles at the RSC in 2013. Ever since, however good, it’s been ‘not as good as 2013.’ This time Orlando (Luke Brady) and Rosalind (Letty Thomas) equalled them. The best we’ve seen since 2013. They both look right. Ganymede is coaching Orlando in how to court Rosalind (he does not know she’s Rosalind). When she kisses him on the lips his reaction was wonderful.

Then Celia, a part I like. Christine Tedders was also as good as we’ve seen it done. Karen reckons the best Celia, but I can think of other good ones. She reckoned she expressed the perfect reaction to her best friend having found a steady boyfriend. She has an Irish accent and it helps. The part is great on the page. Ned Derrington keeps up with the trio as Oliver, the older brother who Celia falls for.

Chris Nayak contrasts the uptight cruel Duke Frederick with Phoebe’s rustic lovelorn suitor. We loved both incarnations.

As You Like It was always a play where the plot failed to stick in my mind in detail. The heavy cutting has done wonders for it, and it is superb editing. It refocus things. For example, both Audrey’s and Phoebe’s roles stand out far more. Both are so good that you want as much of them as you can get. Phoebe’s use of fan is memorable.

One of the main issues was that Touchstone’s lines were wordy and laden with Jacobean puns and references that seem forced to a modern audience. Jacques has too much to say. Both were cut right back and shone. Some of the reviewers thought they could have cut both ‘fools’ altogether and focussed on the central story. No, I totally disagree.

Jacques ‘seven ages of man’ speech is so well known that eliminating it would be like cutting the ‘to be’ speech from Hamlet. (I’ve never heard it better done than by Trevor Fox) and Jacques dismissal of the lot of them at the end is essential. Then Touchstone (Duncan Wisbey) has lost all the punning guff and comes across as a hilarious 1930s comedian.

You need Touchstone for the romance with Audrey (Susannah Van Den Berg ). Here they do it, top it with a song and dance routine on the very slippery stage, and get the biggest applause of the show. It’s a fabulous section (with Trevor Fox coming in in a totally different costume as the shy and rejected William).

They also had some first rate singers in there, and Ned Derrington is a fierce snare drummer.

This would be the last dance on a sunny day:

This is the pissing rain version. We loved it just as it was.

If I were the RSC I’d be booking Brendan O’Hea to do the Garden Theatre every summer. I reckon Much Ado for next year. Karen reckons Taming of The Shrew with Luke Brady as Petruchio and tossing a coin for Katherine between Letty Thomas and Christine Tedders, with the other as the sister. Once they have four in the bag (with Comedy of errors) they could rotate them every summer. These are designed for audiences fresh to Shakespeare. They need to broaden the audience and this is a starter.

What about the critics? Anyone who gives this less than four doesn’t like theatre. It is NOT all Hamlet and Lear. The thing is, you judge open air comedy as just that, open air comedy. In that category? Five stars.

Then you don’t rate it against Ibsen and Chekhov, you rate it against other As You Like It productions. We got soaked.It was uncomfortable. We enjoyed and treasured every minute of it. There was no point were it dropped below total attention. Not a single actor dropped the baton. So on that basis? Five stars.

Overall: five stars

WHAT THE CRITICS SAID

4 star
Dfiza Benson, The Telegraph ****
Dave Fargnoli, The Stage ****
Mark Johnson, Beyond The Curtain ****

2 star
David Jays, The Guardian **

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

BRENDAN O’HEA (Director, but here as an actor)
The Tempest, Wanamaker 2016 (Antonio)
Measure for Measure, Globe 2015 (Lucio)
Cymbeline, Wanamaker 2015 (Belarius)
The Duchess of Malfi, Wanamaker, 2014 (Pescara / Rodrigo)
Henry VI, Part 1-3, Globe on Tour (King Lewis of France etc)

CHRIS NAYAK
The Empress, RSC 2023
King Lear, Globe 2017
Much Ado About Nothing, RSC  2015, 2016 (Borachio)
Love’s Labours Lost, RSC 2015, 2016
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, RSC 2016 (Demetrius)

TREVOR FOX
Macbeth, National 2018 (porter)
The Tempest, Wanamaker 2016 (Stephano)
Cymbeline, Wanamaker 2015 (Pisano)
Measure for Measure, Globe 2015 (Pompey)

DUNCAN WISBEY
The Winter’s Tale, RSC 2013
The Spire by William Golding, Salisbury 2012

PETER DUKES
Twelfth Night, Watermill 2017 (Malvolio)

LUKE BRADY
Assassins, Chichester 2023