19 - As You Like It

Now this is just what was needed to mark the halfway point in my Bard loving challenge - an affable tale of love and wrestling!

Back in the Nineties I saw a production by the ‘Check by Jowl’ company which used an an all male cast. It  began with the whole cast on stage, dressed simply in white shirt and black trousers, while Jacques gave the start of the "All the worlds a stage" speech. At the mention of "all the men and women" the cast split so that all the male characters moved to one side and the two due to play the female leads moved to the other. 

Adrian Lester (centre) and Tom Hollander (right)

It was only when thinking again of this production that I remembered that these two were Tom Hollander (of 'Rev' and 'Pirates of the Caribbean' fame) as Celia and Adrian Lester (from among other things TV's 'Hustle') as Rosalind. The first gave a wonderful performance as a woman and the latter expertly played a woman playing a man who's in love with a man, whom she tells to love her as if she were the woman he loved, which she in fact is, even though she’s a man (which of course she isn’t!!!)

People often think of the melancholic Jacques as having the best lines in the play but my favourite character is Touchstone - but then I’m a sucker for a good fool. His talk of wit, wisdom, women and the world is well worth a reread of the play in itself. He reminds me slightly of the rakish 'Top-Banana' Raymond Paine from the movie 'The Night They Raided Minsky's'. 

Raymond (played by Jason Robards) is another comedian full of wit who uses his power of words to control those more weak willed than himself. In one incredible scene he manages to seduce a woman in a restaurant, snake his way out of a beating when her husband shows up then finally leave them with eyes only for each other and all without anyone but Raymond speaking a single word!

And Finally – Given the amount of songs this must also have been Shaky’s first attempt at a musical, long before the conception of ‘Kiss me Kate’, ‘West Side Story’ or ‘Dirty Dick’! (Only lovers of forgotten movie ‘The Tall Guy’ will know about that last one and it’s show stopping tune “I’ve Got a Hunch I’m Going to be King!”)

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