Review: ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL, Royal Shakespeare Theatre

A "Problem Play"? It's not a helpful descriptor, as most of Shakespeare's plays come freighted with a problem or two - "Ol' Shakey? Completed it mate", is not something you're going to hear often. I prefer to call them "Kale Smoothie" plays - you know, a bit painful when you're actually consuming it, but it does you good - and you get a little glow of virtue to bask in afterwards too.

Helena, using one of her father's potions (whether it includes kale or not is lost in time), cures the ailing King of France and is granted whatever she wishes as a reward. She picks the hand in marriage of her longtime crush, Bertram, son of the Countess of Roussillion, under whose roof they both grew up. He's not best pleased, thinking the poor physician's orphan daughter beneath him and he's also quite looking forward to bedding a few virgins before taking a bride - droit de seigneur being a French idea after all.

Meanwhile, his pal Parolles, is all puffed up bravado, looking forward to cracking a few heads in the Italian wars - he helpfully suggests Bertram escape the marital bed and join him on the adventure and so he does. Helena takes off after her now husband and connives to get what she wants and, to be fair, what she's due.

Blanche McIntyre has set the play in the present day of social media, with its swiping and trolling, a conceit that works well in the first half, but rather peters out in the second. Nevertheless (pace that kale smoothie) the seed is planted and we're thinking about hot button topics like bullying, stalking and consent from the get-go, anchoring a troublesome narrative in our lives today. Sure we're looking at a collection of control freaks, egomaniacs and needy types (a frequent criticism of the play), but have you scrolled through your timeline recently? Yep, there's a few Helenas and Bertrams there.

Rosie Sheehy starts as a schoolgirl, reminding us that this is a play about teens (tweens given that adulthood came pretty much with the onset of puberty in Shakespeare's day - male or female, you had to have children before the plague took you, and plenty of them to boot), so these kids are being dragged by the nose, awash with hormonal turmoil. It's hardly any wonder that they make bad or, rather, selfish decisions. Sheehy develops her Helena superbly, growing in confidence, ruthless in her entrapment of Bertram (don't try this at home) and finishes the play with her prize, tainted a little, but she's standing on the moral high ground and can now shape him as she pleases.

Benjamin Westerby skilfully does the opposite with Bertram, the handsome, dopey kid, learning nothing, falling into traps right, left and centre, a vortex of arrogance and entitlement that was bound to get his comeuppance. It's hard to empathise with him at first, but then some of us remember that we were 15 once too and blush inwardly - at least I hope it was inward.

Elsewhere, there's plenty of fun to be had. Claire Benedict brings gravity and dignity to her Countess, full of love and always trying to do the right thing in a world just too chaotic for her decency to penetrate. Bruce Alexander's King is regularly exasperated by his courtiers and by the paradox of all authority figures dealing with youth - "Aren't I supposed to be in charge?", he splutters repeatedly - or words to that effect. Simon Coates's Lafew takes an alternative tack and deals with these kids through a brutal sarcasm - very funny it is too, wit the best weapon against the painfully dim.

There's laughs aplenty too from Jamie Wilkes, who delivers a bravura turn as Parolles, the cowardly braggart who gets a vicious payback from his fellow soldiers who see through his self-serving dissembling. 400 years ago, life was cruel and his dressing down (literally) seems way over the top today - and then you think of a social media pile-on and the consequences for reality TV stars and you realise (as usual) that Shakespeare was illuminating universal human traits - it's just done differently now.

Not, then, one of the more comforting plays to round out the 10 year odyssey that the RSC has taken through the Bard's buffet of plays but, I'll vouch, one that will live long in the memory of anyone who sees it. Sometimes we have to look below the strawberry, banana and mango option on the menu and pick a smoothie that keeps the body -and the body politic - in good working order, even if it does leave a bitter taste in the mouth.

All's Well That Ends Well is at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford Upon Avon until 8 October

Photo Credit: Ikin Yum

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