Writer: William Shakespeare
Director: Mark Collier
As You Like It is the perfect play for a warm summer’s evening. Since most of the action takes place in the Forest of Arden, outdoors makes perfect sense. And the Royal Hospital Chelsea’s stable courtyard, spacious but enclosed, is an ideal venue. It is, however, right under the Heathrow flightpath. Full marks to the cast, working without mics, for remaining audible against almost continual low-flying aircraft noise. It must be very hard work, but their energy never dips.
Lucy Green’s simple set provides a tent-like screen through and around which the four performers dive and dart continuously. Over it is a quasi-washing line, which represents the tree on which Orlando hangs his poems. It’s effective.
There are several songs in As You Like It, sung here with guitar, ukulele, and/or percussion in arrangements by music director Guy Hughes, who uses attractive muscular folk-style harmonies. There’s a delightful little rhythmic hunting motif too, halfway between a dance and a chant, when they bring in a game audience member to be the stag. At different times, they also have to be a sheep and a lioness.
They’re a talented bunch who, between them, play all the parts in one of Shakespeare’s more complicated plots. They manage the cross-dressing and disguises with lots of varied voice work and simple costume changes, creating extra humour, in the time-honoured way out of the absurdity of the doubling. Of the four, the stonkingly good Josh Radcliffe stands out. He really can become a completely different person simply by moving his face. He throws in audience asides and seems to have dozens of voices in his repertoire. He’s an unusually charismatic actor to watch.
The Seven Ages of Man is one of Shakespeare’s most famous speeches, so every director has to decide how to make it fresh – it’s a bit like the handbag moment in The Importance of Being Earnest. Mark Collier’s take on it is genius. He has Isobel Donkin as a very flamboyant Jacques using an extraordinary voice to speak the lines while, at lightning speed, Radcliffe acts out each of the seven stages mostly on a bike assisted by the other two. It’s masterly, hilarious and totally original: the best thing in the whole show.
It’s also a clever idea because Handlebards’ USP is that they tour the country on bikes, thus providing the closest thing to the touring players (as in Hamlet) of Shakespeare’s day that we’re likely to meet in the twenty-first century. They announce at the end of the show that they will cycle 1800 miles to cover this summer’s tour.
Of course, they’re not the only company touring small-cast Shakespeare with immaculately clear storytelling and a lot of humour. Illyria and Half Cut Theatre Company come to mind because they do something very similar. So, this As You Like It is not particularly groundbreaking, but it’s enjoyably entertaining and very slick.
Reviewed on 7 July and continues to tour until 11 September 2026
