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Fiona Mountford's rating
Reader rating
Description: A chance to explore behind the scenes of the play and learn about the creative process.
Trains: Tube: London Bridge/Mansion House/Southwark/St Paul's 
, Tube / Bus: 11, 15, 17, 23, 26, 45, 63, 76, 100 
Phone: 020 7401 9919
Woodland lovers: Rosalind (Naomi Frederick) and Orlando (Jack Laskey)
There’s always lots going on in the Forest of Arden but if any outing for these delightful sylvan shenanigans is not underpinned by a solid base layer of charm, it’s done for. The RSC’s current gloomy Stratford production, which is big on rural hardship and short on anything resembling appeal, is a case in point.
It’s good to see that director Thea Sharrock doesn’t make this fundamental mistake in a fluid, confident Shakespearean debut.
For my money, two key relationships provide the tent poles of this comedy. Firstly, we have devoted cousins Rosalind (Naomi Frederick) and Celia (Laura Rogers), who cannot bear to be separated when the former is banished from the court of vituperative Duke Frederick.
For us to believe in the girls’ solidarity and their passionately assumed personae of Ganymede and Aliena, the pair must sparkle equally, even if Celia gets desperately short shrift in the romance stakes.
Frederick is a triumph, donning dashing leather britches and blending confidence and vulnerability in exactly the right quantities, yet Rogers is more than her equal, stamping some much‑needed character onto this too often washed-out role.
For once, we can believe that evil baddie turned redeemed lover Oliver (Jamie Parker, assured) falls for her on the spot.
Unfortunately, the soggy end of the tent, in this typically liberating and expiatory Shakespearean forest, is due to Rosalind’s romance. Jack Laskey’s Orlando starts out promisingly as an ardent if callow youth but doesn’t proceed to suggest anything near the emotional depth of Frederick.
There’s little spark between the pair either; Sharrock should have worked for greater coherence here.
Still, there’s much to enjoy in the rest of the strongly realised roles from this far better than average Globe cast.
Those two old bores, Touchstone and Jaques, are made fresh and appealing by Dominic Rowan, who has a fine time grandstanding to the groundlings with his nimble wit, and Tim McMullan. Not only does McMullan’s rich-voiced Jaques luxuriate in his melancholy, he’s so studiedly lugubrious that he can barely make it to the end of a sentence.
All’s well in this new Arden-Eden in the end, of course, and we like the journey to the joyous resolution well enough.
In rep until 10 October. Information: 020 7401 9919, www.shakespeares-globe.org.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
