As You Like It - I did, very much

 I haven’t had as much fun dancing and singing along to a play for ages.  This was a spur of the moment booking when I had a spare evening so I grabbed a groundling ticket at the Globe to see As You Like It. I hadn’t seen a single review so had no idea what I would be walking into but this romcom of a play is almost always fun anyway so I kept my fingers crossed. 

As You Like it takes place in the Forest of Arden where the strict rules of the city no longer apply and where the characters can become different versions of themselves to find their own freedoms.  This production ditched chunks of the language (‘shall we just go to the next scene?’) and all of the songs, replacing them with catchy danceable pop numbers instead, with a definite eye on the audience having fun.  Whilst Shakespeare purists and gender critical types might be a bit grumpy, the only bit from the traditional version I actually missed was Rosalind's closing speech.  But, that's a small gripe in a play that overall I suspect captures something like the authentic gender confusion an audience from Shakespeare's time would have found with Orlando (Isabel Adomakoh Young*) falling in love with a Rosalind (Nina Bowers) played by Ganymede, played by Rosalind.  The costumes are a mix of traditional, mixed with modern, mixed with fantastical, which become more and more disarrayed the longer we spend in the forest.  I loved Rosalind's final costume too and can I just say I loved this feisty Celia (Macy-Jacob Seelochan) in every way.  

Gender bending and confusion are at the heart of this play anyway, together with complicated love triangles which have very few straight lines, and this production ramped it up and went for fluidity at every turn. A play which is already designed to celebrate love in all its forms, this version was definitely queer joy.  Obviously the Globe is a theatre which encourages fun and informality anyway and I think everyone felt the joy, including the people in the more expensive gallery seats also standing and dancing with those of us on the ground by the end. 

I highly recommend this for a blast of a night out. It’s running until the end of October and when I looked there were still some tickets available on most dates.  I may well go back again (and at £12.50 a ticket I can afford to!)  Although I have just realised that I was at press night and reviews are not yet out, so if the reviewers love it as much as I did there may not be many left.

I walked back along the embankment to Waterloo station with a clear sky and the bridges lit up.  One of those nights when everything falls into place and London just delivers. 

*Found my Heartstopper link,  Isabel plays Miss Greenwood in series 1