I’m not sure it’s possible to see Michelle Terry on a stage without falling a little in love with her. She has the intelligence, inventiveness and vivacity to play the character and the show simultaneously, not setting herself above the material but relishing almost every minute of her immersion in the role and constantly inviting us to share it with her. Consequently, the part of Rosalind is a gift to her. She gets to play with that double-whammy gender-bend: enjoying her disguise in breeches when exiled in the Forest of Arden, doubly enjoying it when s/he persuades Orlando to embark on a love cure by pretending that s/he “really” is his beloved Rosalind, and most of all ensuring that the often rumbustious Globe groundlings come along for the ride.

On this outing Terry is matched, and occasionally even surpassed, by James Garnon as the melancholy Jaques, one of the (numerous) other aristocrats-turned-foresters. Garnon likewise plays his character as smart enough to gently parody himself much of the time, but also to know that his reputation is deserved, grounded in a distinct tendency towards sombre introspection. He has some moments of genius: when the Duke makes a remark about “This wide and universal theatre”, this is Jaques’ cue for his “All the world’s a stage” set-piece, but Garnon begins it questioningly, as if to say to the Duke, you’re not really dusting off this hack old metaphor, are you? All right, then…

Yet something fails to jell. Blanche McIntyre is a bright and talented director, but she may not yet have got the full measure of the Globe. She seems to have tried to deal with this large open-air space by repeatedly setting characters far apart, notably on the twin ramps off the stage at either side. However, this also introduces a psychological distance between them. Even at the multiple-wedding happy ending, Rosalind is centre stage whilst Orlando is several yards away on one of the ramps. McIntyre may be intending a point that all the play’s relationships, like that of the clown Touchstone (Daniel Crossley) and his “sluttish” wench Audrey, are of unreliable closeness, but it ends up attenuating the festivity of the comedy without setting up anything definite in its place.
  
Written for the Financial Times.