Fun in the forest

Shakespeare’s Globe

There’s never a long gap between productions of Shakespeare’s much loved comedy As You Like It. Despite its familiarity, it remains quite confusing. WhatsOnStage tried help with the plot: ‘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.’ The critics enjoyed Sean Holmes and Charlie Josephine‘s comical production (‘rambunctious fun’ Telegraph), and praised many of the actors including Lola Shalam‘s Rosalind, Jonnie Broadbent‘s Touchstone and Katherine Pearce‘s Jaques. 

4 stars ⭑⭑⭑⭑

Time Out’s Andrzej Lukowski assured us: ‘This is not a production that (as far as I can tell) comes with a massive high concept’. It’s simply; ‘a burst of late summer sun.’ He mentioned: ‘Katherine Pearce’s Jaques is a lovely, human take on the role, somebody with a sensitive, downbeat disposition rather than the sort of thunderous performative melancholy that the role is typically saddled with.

Matt Wolf for LondonTheatre called it: ‘a production that has scant time for rest and wants instead to release the audience into a late-summer landscape of mischief and mirth.’

Clement Scott at BroadwayWorld found: ‘Lola Shalam’s take on Rosalind, perhaps Shakespeare’s most finely crafted female character, highlights her open pursuit of sexual desire, and hints at the gender euphoria the character might feel when dressing as Ganymede.’

Miriam Sallon for WhatsOnStage was not fond of the set: ‘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.’ Nevertheless, she loved almost everything else: ‘The music, as always at the Globe, is the cherry on top.’

3 stars ⭑⭑⭑

Rachel Halliburton for The Times asked: ‘How do you make such a staple of the summer repertoire shine? Here, in no small part through music and design. Katie Richardson’s ebullient band … shifts compellingly from baroque formality to folk, while Paul Wills’s elegant set blooms as woodland inhabitants draw trees and leaves onto the blank canvases.’

The Guardian’s Arifa Akbar noted: ‘Many aspects of this production soar high, including the comedy, sublimely eked by almost every character. Touchstone (Jonnie Broadbent, bare-chested with lacy ruff) is a comic highlight, Jaques’ (Katherine Pearce) “All the world’s a stage” speech is quietly moving and Shalam is a commanding Rosalind, full of charm and cheek.’ She cautioned: ‘although the comedy entertains, it takes away the play’s subversive edges’.

Tom Wicker for The Stage loved Rosalind: ‘Shalam dazzles nearly everyone else off the stage. In a play full of self-important characters, her flailing attempts to be ‘a man’ are funny, but always heartfelt. With the lightest of touches, she captures Shakespeare’s delight in treating no identity as permanent, ‘essential’ or off-the-table for playful parody.’ His reservation was: ‘Where this staging loses ground is in never varying its self-consciously breezy, cheeky tone enough to tap into the play’s more melancholic depths.’

‘Even if it doesn’t always convince emotionally, this pacy production, which leans into the play’s bawdy humour, is still rambunctious fun’ said Kirsten Grant in the Telegraph. She concluded: ‘Holmes and Josephine’s staging doesn’t concern itself with As You Like It’s emotional depths. (Katherine Pearce’s Jaques is less melancholy and becomes a rather understated figure.) Instead, peppered with audience sing-alongs and folk music, this evening of “rustic revelry” will send audiences out on a giddy high.’

Critics’ average rating 3.5⭑

You can see As You Like It at Shakespeare’s Globe until 25 October 2026. Buy tickets directly from shakespearesglobe.com

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