Dominic Cooke's production is not without its pleasures, but would be much more As I Like It if it would only get a move on. Time always passes much more slowly in the country, but in this Arden it appears to have stood still entirely. Cooke's production has two gears: slow and slower.
It's a pity because the evening - dominated by Rae Smith's design of a huge ancient yew tree that stands witness to the shifting fortunes and follies of the humans who pass beneath its branches - begins to emit a warm glow as icy winter gives way to summer. If it never succeeds in melting your heart it is because Cooke's approach and that of his actors is not just slow but also over studied.
It is like watching the blueprint for production and performances, but not the real thing. You can see all the cogs moving. You witness impulsiveness and rapture being acted, but not being felt. It is like a very intelligent essay on the play, not the play itself. This is particularly true of Lia Williams, a really marvellous actress, who here is inclined to overdo both the schoolgirlish charm of the Rosalind of the court, and the rapture and goofiness of the disguised Rosalind in love. The point is being made that she is more herself when disguised as a man, but it is over-emphatic. The whole performance begins to look like an affectation.
Similarly, Amanda Harris as Celia - the plain, dumpy friend who is endlessly outshone by her companion - is encouraged to overdo the comic stuff, so that the performance becomes a series of twitches. Entertaining twitches, but twitches nonetheless.
Those who keep it plain fare best, whether it is Joseph Mydell's style slave Jaques, John Mackay's genuinely mixed Oliver and Jonathan Newth, who in the production's best idea, gets to play both the turncoat usurper and the banished duke.
· Until March 25. Box office: 0870 950 0940.
