As You Like It’s Coming Home: Neon, Glow Sticks, and the Spirit of Old Sir Rowland

The first production of As You Like It in Shropshire to uncompromisingly stake the claim of the county on Shakespeare’s wedding play and supreme meditation on love and harmony pulled no punches. Shropshire Youth Theatre was combative, exuberant, and alive with an obvious relish in the work; the company created an amazing atmosphere of enjoyment that was as infectious as the 1990s rave culture they portrayed.

This was a landmark moment: the first production in modern times, and indeed in centuries, to return the play to its own soil with such a specific and knowing sense of its historical origin. By shifting the Forest of Arden into 1994, the direction found a modern pulse for Shakespeare’s exploration of freedom, going in its own creative direction while still honouring the deep local roots mentioned in the program.

The success of the evening rested on a powerhouse performance in the role of Rosalind (Matilda Boughton). It is an enormous, difficult role that can sometimes feel like a verbal diary, but here she was a true leader and a hero—a cypher for the energy of Elizabeth I as the character was originally intended.

Beside her, Orlando (Sam Bruton) was wonderful and relatable as a plausible lover from our own time. He managed to take a role that is often two-dimensional as written—essentially a wet-blanket poet with naff poems and a tendency toward depression—and make him something very compelling and real. Celia (Ella Jones) was also excellent, standing firmly as her own woman rather than just following in Rosalind’s wake.

The supporting cast brought some brilliantly sharp, modern choices to the stage. Jacques (Hamish Findlay) was fabulously entitled and whiny, while the barmaid Corin (Valerie Egerton) provided a fantastic transposition that pricked pomposity exactly as Shakespeare intended. Audrey (Chloe Wrench) was a standout, avoiding the typical traps of being either simple and innocent or merely vulgar. Instead, she carried a kind of dignity and power in her grittiness that made her feel grounded; in a modern setting, this portrayal was both provoking and powerful, feeling remarkably real alongside a suave and pacy Touchstone (Seth Richards). Phebe (Abbie O’Shea) and Silvius (Oscar Boughton) were very funny, and William (Harry Heyes) drew a real mix of sympathy and horror from the audience at the rank way the character was treated by the courtly figures.

Oliver (Josiah Iddon) was appropriately menacing and disturbing as the “baddy” brother. His later reconciliation with Orlando, shared over cans of Carling, was uncomfortable in a way rarely seen on stage; it made perfect sense of the “eggshells” reconciliation required after such a history of betrayal. This stood in stark contrast to the actor playing both Duke Frederick and Duke Senior, who showed impressive range and conveyed a goodly leader in exile with a warmth that was felt sincerely by everyone.

Behind the scenes, the technical side was flawless (and the glow sticks for the audience were much appreciated). The fight scenes and wrestling were gripping and beyond the years of a youth company. Converting Hymen (Alexis Uttley) into a DJ was a clever touch for the nineties framing, and the final dance of harmony showed a real consciousness of the enormous symbolic weight of the play’s ending. It was a beautiful bit of geometry and resolution.

The staging knowingly recognized the cultural heritage of the work, and for this reviewer, the looming presence of Old Sir Rowland over the play was particularly uplifting: it felt like a deliberate tribute to the history of the area, performed with a sense of significance that has not been seen in hundreds of years.

All images featured in this article are credited to Mike Ashton (www.macreative.co.uk), with the exception of the image marked with an asterisk (*).