AS
YOU LIKE IT
at
the New Wolsey Theatre Ipswich
presented by Transport, co-produced with the New Wolsey Theatre and Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg and presented by house
10.10.13
My
fourth
As
You
Like
It
this
season;
by
far
the
most
inventive,
and
in
some
ways
the
most
magical.
For
this
anarchic
adaptation,
director
Douglas
Rintoul
draws
inspiration
from
his
time
at
Calais's
No
Borders
camp
for
migrants
hoping
to
enter
the
UK.
We
hardly
need
reminding
of
the
desperate
lengths
such
fugitives
will
go
to
as
they
escape
fighting,
or
famine,
or
seek
their
fortune.
One
such
is
Fisayo
Akinade's
refugee,
who
tells
us,
prologue-like,
of
life
in
the
camp,
and
of
his
love
for
Shakespeare,
and
this
play
especially.
He
is
perfecting
his
English
by
memorising
All
The
World's
A
Stage.
He
is
reluctant
to
see
As
You
Like
It
performed
– it
could
never
be
as
he
imagined
it
– but
agrees
to
continue
if
all
nine
migrants
will
take
part
…
Is
it
a
measure
of
Shakespeare's
genius,
or
Rintoul's,
that
so
much
of
the
play
fits
the
circumstances
so
well
?
Fleeing
dictatorship,
exile
in
Arden,
Aliena's
very
name,
liberty
[not
banishment].
These
rough
sleepers
are
brothers
in
exile;
Orlando
is
welcome
to
their
table,
though
he
had
thought
all
things
savage
there.
The
style
of
the
piece
[designed
by
Hayley
Grindle]
heavily
reinforces
this
unusual
setting.
A
drab
room,
crammed
with
thin
mattresses,
peeling
paper
on
the
walls,
an
unseen
helicopter
circling
overhead,
shadowy
figures
lurking
along
corridors.
The
music
– the
songs
[was
that
Adele,
was
that
Chris
Barber?]
are
very
effectively
lip-synched,
Colin
Michael
Carmichael
an
eager
Touchstone
– and
the
gloomy
lighting
gives
an
enchanting
filmic
quality
to
many
of
the
scenes.
The
actors
reflect
the
disparate
nature
of
the
concept
– this
production
opened
in
Luxembourg
before
crossing
the
channel
– and
the
delivery
of
the
lines
was
not
always
ideal.
Nothing
to
do
with
the
linguistic
origins
of
the
actor:
the
Celia
of
Anna
Elijasz
[from
Poland]
is
one
of
the
most
successful,
and
she
makes
a
lovely
slut
Audrey,
too,
getting
what
few
laughs
are
going
here.
Michael
Fox's
Orlando
lacks
charisma,
though,
and
Mark
Jax,
as
Jaques,
struggles
to
make
his
melancholy
stand
out
from
the
sombre
mood
of
the
rest.
Elisabet
Johannesdottir
[Iceland]
makes
a
convincing
Ganymede;
her
cross-dressed
seduction
is
nicely
done.
And
Akinade,
as
well
as
his
introduction
and
a
halting
epilogue,
gives
us
William
and
a
lovely
Warwickshire
Silvius.
The
grim
setting
leaches
almost
all
the
pastoral
gaiety
from
this
dark,
deliberately-paced
production
[the
"no
woman"
quartet
a
lively
exception]
which
might
have
benefited
from
a
leaner
text.
And
I
wonder
what
the
[impeccably
behaved]
schoolchildren
in
the
front
row
made
of
it
all.
Old
hands
will
have
Michael
Bryant's
apple-crunching
Jaques
to
look
back
on,
or
this
year's
Rosalind
on
the
lake.
But
I'm
not
sure
I
would
like
this
haunting,
thoughtful
vision
to
be
my
first
walk
in
the
Forest
of
Arden
...
this piece first appeared on The Public Reviews
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