Review: AS YOU LIKE IT, The Savill Garden Open Air Theatre, June 24 2016

Down a winding lane, a canopy of trees covering the narrow road and on to an idyllic, lush garden teeming with flora's fecundity. One could hardly ask for a more fitting setting for Watch Your Head's high summer production of As You Like It, Shakespeare's cross-dressing comedy set in the sylvan glades of the Forest of Arden.

First things first. There's a fair bit of walking to be done, much of it over grass that is already a bit muddy - so we're very much in sensible shoes country. It can get a bit chilly too, so a jacket, and maybe a bit of anorak protection in case of a shower, is recommended too. And if you have any ideas about how to redirect the flights coming into Heathrow - well, that would help everyone.

So is it worth it? Of course it is! The plot is convoluted and preposterous, but that's not really what this play is about - it's about how lovers play games to snare the right suitor and how they use language, shifting identities and song to do so. And, right in the middle, there's one of Shakey's greatest setpiece monologues, like a car chase in a blockbuster movie.

Molly Hanson is excellent as the oft-exasperated Celia, grouchy but lovable enough for us to be hugely pleased when she snares the man she wants in the end - a good friend winning out. She plays second fiddle for much of the time to Anna Lukis as Rosalind, the girl who poses as a man who poses as a girl. Though Lukis doesn't project her voice as strongly as Hanson, she is coquettishly sexy and very funny when seducing Orlando (a knowing Lewis Goody) and when setting up the couples for marriage. Jack Bannell has the moves like Jagger as the melancholy Jacques in a show-stealing bohemian turn in which he has as much fun as we do. They get plenty of support from a multi-talented cast.

There's music, acrobatics and, at the end, wonderful food for us, in a show that does not stint on the sensory overload. If it can be slightly tricky working out exactly who's who in the interlocking love stories, well, it doesn't matter that much - enjoy the speeches and the banter, delight in the actors moving between us to deliver them and, more than anything, revel in a unique event that feels about as English as English gets, in the parkland of a Royal palace. And check the weather forecast!

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