In his notes on As You Like It, director David Freeman states that he has never seen a production which really nailed the play. I would agree that it can seem the least developed of Shakespeare's comedies, whose popularity with modern audiences is slightly baffling.
Certainly, there are aspects which remain enduringly relevant - the proto-green philosophising strikes a chord, while any number of transsexual case histories bear out Rosalind's trauma of feeling trapped inside the wrong body. But it also has its longueurs and more than enough whimsical roundels to leave you pleading "hey nonny no more".
Freeman is an established agent provocateur of the opera world, whose productions are never afraid to tear a strip off Puccini or Mozart, and it seems characteristic of his approach that Duke Frederick's court should be interpreted as a goose-stepping military dictatorship in which the primly uniformed Rosalind and Celia share a love that may indeed be dearer than the natural bond of sisters.
Yet despite promising beginnings, the production follows the familiar course of getting lost in the forest. It is not helped by a bizarre design conceit whereby the courtiers' armchairs suddenly lift off and hover 20 feet above the stage, dangling tendril-like appendages beneath them. One admires the surrealism of the gesture, though it does give the impression that Arden has been invaded by a school of jellyfish.
None of the cast display much of an ear for the humour of the verse, though David Hobbs makes a mellifluous Jaques, Sarah Quintrell strikes a natural spark as Celia and Richard Evans is an affectingly ancient Adam, whose unnoticed passing amid the final revelry gives the production its one moment of genuine insight right at the death.
· Until June 23. Box office: 01332 363275.
