Unlike many a play who’s action springs from mistaken identity or some slip, such as here, of a misdirected letter, Costard’s lackadaisical error as postman is soon picked up and not allowed to work itself out to what is usually, in such plays, a hilarious and delightful conclusion.

Shakespeare’s interest in this play is more like an age-old tension between philosophy and libido. He decides to forgo the possibilities of the mistake, once set up, whilst leaving little doubt as to which is likely to come out on top. Director, Emily Burns, has given the winning side a little more than a fighting chance by setting the play on a sunny holiday island in the Pacific. The boys are in their casual summer clothes and the girls, pouting, posing and posting on social media have fun giving the boys a hard time. The king of Navarre really doesn’t have a hope in hell’s chance of getting the young men to forswear all interest in girls in a court where they act more like a bunch of testosterone wired undergrads.

Jack Bardoe gave us a memorable, fantastical Don Armado, laying down shapes as contorted as his language, oozing passion that could barely be confined. Similarly the Costard of Nathan Foad was unconfined in comic soppiness. Not quite up to the demands of court, yet brazenly unrepentant. The wrestling match between the two was deliciously pointless. Tony Gardner deserves a mention for a punctiliously verbose Holofernes.

Ms Burns shows a mastery of stagecraft and gets the most out of Joanna Scotcher’s revolving set, which has a bright, yet austere civic simplicity that also serves as a kind of atrium allowing some comic biz up a tree. The unity of her conception never lags and brings the play into the present day without any awkwardness. The ladies room at a health spa and a golf course – with buggy – are easily accommodated into the fun.

In a play that relies more on language than plot it seemed a shame that the youthful boisterousness of the men seemed to give rise to a competition to see who could say their lines the quickest. Attempting to sail serenely above the melee, Abiola Awokoniran’s king is a man, unsurprisingly hoist by his own petard, though never ruffled in his casual elegance. If there is a weakness in the production it is that the conclusion is all but prescribed and the tension between human aspiration and human weakness, which is the primum mobile of much comedy, is but a fleeting moment. The coolness of the ladies, led by the visiting Princess (Melanie-Joyce Bermudez) whilst provoked as a reaction to the bothersome boys, nevertheless hides a twinkle that is an unspoken code amongst the sisterhood.

This is a very successful modern day production, which will make it accessible to a wider audience.

★★★★☆     Graham Wyles   19 April 2024