Shakespeare's teasing tale about the young King of Navarre and his followers who forswear female company and love for a life of contemplation, only to find themselves faced by the imminent arrival of the Princess of France and her ladies, can sometimes seem as if it is all mouth and trousers. The pleasure is largely in the dancing wit and rhetoric rather than in the action or character; it often seems like one of the very few Shakespeare works that reads better than it plays.
Director Dominic Dromgoole, however, mostly wears the trousers. True, there are times when Maria's comment on her suitor Longaville... "a sharp wit match'd with too blunt a will", could be said of this production, too. It walks a fine line as it mixes bare-faced cheek with bare-cheeked bottoms. It is only in the scene just before the interval, when the men try to hide their love for the women, that the production suddenly bursts into life and the comedy takes wing. The production spills out into the yard courtesy of Jonathan Fensom's zigzag catwalk design, which takes the play straight into the heart of the audience.
As so often is the case at the Globe, it is the audience who lift the production rather than vice versa, but that is nothing to complain about. Yes, the final play within a play drags a little, but high spirits carry it through, although the women get the best of the men both in love and the acting stakes. Despite some curious line stresses, Michelle Terry's pint-sized princess has an Anne Robinson-ish wit and, as Rosaline, recent Rada graduate Gemma Arteton is a real find: a Shakespearian star in the making.
· Until October 5. Box office: 020-7401 9919.
