“The epitome of camp, comedic chaos”
Featuring an all-male cast, the RSC’s “As You Like It” doesn’t play with gender as much as one might expect. Indeed, the female characters remain female, in the sense that there is no changing of pronouns – if anything, this is Shakespeare done at its most traditional, mirroring the fact that women were not permitted to perform onstage during the late 1500s/early 1600s. Often, the characters are portrayed seriously – these are not drag queens or pantomime dames, but for the most part fully fleshed out characters that we can become invested in – yet it does rob the show of some of its humour. When Jonathan Groff’s Rosalind is banished from court and disguises herself as a man, many of her asides to the audience don’t land as well as they would otherwise, and many of the sexist jokes, which can be easily undermined when spoken by female actors, feel elevated in the mouths of male actors. Whilst still incredibly funny, the purpose of this interpretation is never quite clear.
The play begins in the court of Gary Wilmot’s Duke Frederick, with Anisha Fields’ set design incredibly corporate and sterile, vast white floors and white walls, with long shadows cast by Ryan Day’s lighting design. We begin in dramatic fashion, with Groff thrown onto stage, where he is serenaded by an acapella performance that incorporates aspects of Jaques’ “All the world’s a stage” speech. Acapella becomes a recurring theme throughout, something that feels haunting in these opening moments, yet more comforting later when action moves into the forest, and the performances from the ensemble are nothing less than beautiful. These opening moments hint at a more emotional interpretation of the play, but it’s one that never quite materialises, with later scenes falling back on some tired comedy tropes.
Elliot Barnes-Worrell’s Orlando enters into a wrestling match after mistreatment at the hands of his brother (Caleb Roberts as Oliver). The wrestling match is played rather predictably as a modern-day WWE contest, with swooping bright lights and Playboy bunnies carrying cards declaring “Round 1” etc. Still, it’s a lot of fun, and makes for an exciting scene, with some superb stage combat courtesy of Barnes-Worrell and Edward Judge’s Charles the Wrestler. This, accompanied with an early scene that sees Roberts wearing headphones and ignoring his brother, hints at a complete modernisation, but again, this is an aspect that is dropped in later scenes, as the play reverts to something more traditional. Looking back, these early scenes feel out of place given what we see later in the show.
Where most of the conversation surrounding this play will focus on Broadway actor Jonathan Groff, making his RSC stage debut, there should be just as much talk about Fisayo Akinade as Celia, for Groff and Akinade make for a formidable double act. Colin Richmond’s costume design dresses the two in overly lavish yet conservative dresses, reminiscent of Cole Escola in the West End’s “Oh, Mary!”, and the two are instantly funny and likeable, a camp immaturity offering some nice contrast to the macho bravado displayed elsewhere in these early scenes. The costumes are given a more earthy feel as the two make their escape to the Forest of Arden, and it is here where Akinade comes into his own, a delightful series of facial expressions and audible reactions to Rosalind’s fawning over Orlando that means you won’t want to take your eyes off him.
It helps that Celia disguises herself as a woman, meaning that Akinade doesn’t get caught up in a convoluted gender switch, which really seems to hamper Groff’s performance – once Rosalind is disguised as Ganymede, it feels like we are seeing Groff in a more comfortable role than when Rosalind was just being herself. There are a few visual jokes that play with gender in ways that don’t quite stack up; a repeated sexual implication every time someone kneels in front of Groff grows tiresome, yet a later indication that Oliver has discovered Rosalind’s secret after brushing against her chest has us questioning the gender of these characters again. Perhaps the point is to keep hammering the gender aspect, although one could argue that gender becomes even less important in the genderless world that the play has created by having all characters portrayed by male actors.
The most dramatic change as we move to the Forest of Arden comes in the reveal of Fields’ vast set, a grassy hill that is brought forward to fill the stage, in a design that is impressive and offers multiple levels for the cast to play with. On press night, a technical malfunction as this set was revealed caused a significant show stop of more than an hour, a fault from which the performance never properly recovered – a shame as this reveal is set up to be the crowning jewel of this lavish production. Immediately, all elements of the sterile court are lost – characters’ clothing even changes with softer fabrics, in beige and cargo colours. We are never afforded a proper juxtaposition onstage, with one world simply replaced by another, and no bleed between the two. The characters that reside in the forest are given Welsh accents, and sing Welsh folk hymns, which perhaps harkens back to director Daniel Evans’ roots, but feels like another idea in a show full of ideas that don’t quite fit together as well as one might hope.
There are a flurry of characters that are a little hit-and-miss; Richard McCabe’s Jaques is delightfully droll and gives a beautifully understated rendition of “All the world’s a stage”, which slowly grows from a casual conversational tone into something more meaningful, whilst others don’t hold our attention quite so much, simply filling time until we can enjoy the camaraderie of Groff and Akinade again. Gareth Snook’s Audrey leans too far into heightened melodrama, and when he begins to sing a rendition of Raye’s “Where is my husband!” one cannot help but wonder if the show has jumped the shark. Faring better are Tim Preston’s Phoebe and Judge’s Silvius, who provide some excellent comedy and make for a rather sweet couple despite Phoebe’s protestations.
This is a funny play, and there are moments that everyone will enjoy – it is the epitome of camp, comedic chaos. Yet what one might expect from an all-male production (an inherent queerness, a deconstruction of gender norms) is not present at all. In fact, in having men portraying their characters as female, this becomes one of the most heterosexual versions of “As You Like It” that I have seen, underscored by Groff’s epilogue which claims that all women love men and all men love women. It feels at odds with what Daniel Evans and company are trying to achieve here. A fun evening of utter nonsense, but one that seems like a missed opportunity to portray something much more meaningful.
Tom Morley, October 2026
Review Round-up:
WhatsOnStage: As You Like It – 5* from WOS, who say the show is “a subtle and lively version of one of Shakespeare’s greatest comedies, full of light, laughter and love”
TheStage: As You Like It – 4* from The Stage, who call this production “warm, earnest and unabashedly entertaining”
BeyondTheCurtain: As You Like It – 5* from BTC, who say this production “takes Shakespeare’s celebration of fluid, unrestricted love and lets it bloom into pure theatrical joy”
