As You Like It

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Play Opened 21 June 2005, Closed 17 September 2005

Wyndham's Theatre Charing Cross Road, London

"A brilliant production, witty performances, ravishing designs" The London Evening Standard

David Lan's production of As You Like It is set in 1940's France - the court of the Duke, exiled to the forest of Arden (the Ardennes), are philosophers and poets of Paris Cafe Society. Their songs are in the style of the music of Yves Montand and Edith Piaf. The violence in this dark romance is the memory of the second world war.

Rosalind (disguised as a boy) goes into the forest in search of her father and finds Orlando, with whom she is infatuated, also fleeing tyranny. She offers to cure him of his obsession with her. Thus begins Shakespeare's great celebration of young love.

The cast features multi award winning Helen McCrory as 'Rosalind', Sienna Miller as 'Celia', Dominic West as 'Orlando' and Clive Rowe as 'Duke Senior' with Andrew French, Denise Gough, Michael Howcroft, Rebecca Jenkins, Sam Kenyon, David Killick, Lisa Lee Leslie, Nigel Richards, Ben Turner and Andrew Woodall.

"Helen McCrory steals into one's heart - vibrant and compelling" The Guardian

"The production gains clarity from three strong central performances. Dominic West's Orlando is quite likeable, well muscled, prone to violence and a bit dim - just the kind of aristocratic beefcake who is supposed to send girls reaching for their biological imperative. Helen McCrory, meanwhile, is a fabulous Rosalind, the strength of her passion for Orlando never in any doubt. Giggling with Celia or ordering wine, she might start out as a kind of proto-Bridget Jones, but once she is disguised in male dress as Ganymede, she transcends all stereotypes in favour of emotional truth... McCrory, however, has form, and might have been expected to deliver. More surprising is Sienna Miller's fine performance as Celia... She portrays Celia as self-possessed and playful, full of down~to-earth merriment and perky cynicism. Miller can play tough enough to show that Celia is not just Rosalind's spaniel, while her comic abilities - imitating a regurgitating pigeon, stuffing her mouth with bread - are as robust and unpretty as they are unexpected... Like one of Cupid's arrows, this staging might not, in the long term, be completely satisfying, but with so many shots, it can't help but score." The Sunday Times

"Sienna Miller - a stage debut of breathtaking assurance" The Daily Express

"David Lan's star-encrusted production of Shakespeare's fond and melancholy play does away with the Forest of Arden and sets the action in 1940's France. It opens to the swing of an accordion emerging from the shadows; it has Phoebe in a beret, the shepherd in a blue smock, and a bevy of girls in clumpy heels and calf-length coats... After an over-anxious start, with every phrase tricked up with a moue or a funny voice, Sienna Miller settles into being a cool Celia, giving the part an asperity of her own. She's good at showing how embarrassing and irritating it is when Rosalind (Helen McCrory) starts coming on to her would-be lover. But McCrory acts everyone off the stage, though Dominic West flourishes as a candid Orlando, despite having to wear desperate shorts when he's wrestling." The Observer

"Blossoms into one of the most summery of comedies" The Daily Telegraph

"What a lark, what a romp, what an entertainment is As You Like It directed by David Lan at Wyndham's Theatre. Bubbling with bright cameos, WWF-style wrestling, roundelays, and the lilting accordian music of Lisa-Lee Leslie, this is Shakespeare as a musical rom-com set in a postwar France full of the kind of stock French figures that people those Stella Artois advertisements... As Touchstone the Fool, the stand-up comedian Sean Hughes is an enjoyable buffoon. And Clive Rowe, as the exiled Duke, is infectiously jolly as he leads the chorus in the green dream-wood of Arden." The Sunday Telegraph