As You Like It by William Shakespeare is the newest in the summer run of college garden plays staged in the beautiful gardens of Green Templeton College. Directed by Pablo Wickham, the comedy follows Rosalind, the daughter of an exiled Duchess, and a strapping young lad called Orlando. Having fallen in love at first sight, they separately escape persecution by fleeing to the forest of Arden, and eventually reunite with each other, encountering many wacky characters along the way.

In general, the play was a success: entertaining, well-staged, and followable without a necessarily perfect understanding of the Shakespearean language. Some of the actors were particularly impressive: Martha Thompson as Orlando stood out as completely in character throughout the entire performance, and very compellingly portrayed the rebellious younger brother who falls madly in love. From defeating a renowned wrestler in a tense fist-fight, to reading out his declarations of love which had been carved on trees throughout the forest, never once did my belief in the character waver. The other lead, Djan Mbanu as Rosalind, was equally good: in particular, the relationship between her and her cousin Celia (Mayah Savjani) was very well acted. Both actors seemed very comfortable with each other. Everything from their tones of voice to the way they naturally looked towards each other in reaction to events lent an air of believability to their incredibly close friendship. There was, however, a slight gap between the stage-presence of the leads and the other, more minor, speaking parts. While no actor was lacking, per se, there were certain characterisations I feel could have been improved by working on the way they held themselves when on stage but not actively engaging in dialogue. On occasion, both Duchesses (Rasadhi Attale and Tara Sehgal), as well as Jacques (Phoebe Thomas), the melancholy drunkard who dwells in the forest, were left standing to the side of a scene, as if merely spectating. All performances by these actors were far more impressive when they were actively speaking, but the staging of their parts was left lacking during their down-time. 

The character blocking was done well when characters were broadly stationary, or when there were many characters filling the stage. For example, when the famed wrestler is fighting Orlando, surrounded by almost the entire cast, the space felt well-utilised, defining a perimeter of the action while still allowing a large space for the actual fight to occur. However, when the scene consisted of fewer characters, they occasionally seemed to be simply milling around in the centre of the stage-space. The stage itself was an undefined area of the garden, which sometimes had its advantages – such as when the cast ‘hid’ behind a thin section of the bushes, as opposed to when they genuinely hid themselves behind a thicker area of trees as a ‘backstage’. Another particularly strong point of the staging was the usage of a small concrete gateway with steps leading up to it, on the far-left of the audience’s view. It became the house inhabited by Rosalind and her friends – the physically separate space aided in keeping it a designated setting, while the rest of the stage was able to be used as many different places. On the other hand, the loosely defined stage sometimes left the action feeling quite small and underwhelming, with the largely empty space not being filled: something I think could have been somewhat fixed by encouraging larger physical expressions and movements in each of the characters. 

On the topic of the characters’ physicality, Oliver Crosh as Oliver, Orlando’s elder brother, really succeeded in leaning into the comedic nature of the play. With occasions ranging from being choked by his brother to being madly in love, Oliver infused everything he did with an appropriately high level of comedic expression. Touchstone (Paloma Díaz), the good-natured, reliable jester who accompanies the cousins on their journey into the woods, also utilised the freedom that comes with being a jester to emphasise their humorous movements and whimsical moralising. Similarly, Phoebe (Meg Bruton) and her relentless pursuer Silvius (Evangeline Lafond) succeeded in filling the stage each time they were on it, really embracing the irrational sides of their characters, providing a very entertaining side-plot to the action, and definitely bringing the comedy of it all up a notch. On the whole, however, I think the cast could have been encouraged to take their physical movements to greater heights: a lot could have been gained by embracing the fact that As You Like It is a comedy, and as such might have been better told through a more over-the-top approach.

Costume design was a strong suit of the production: as it is a garden play, I expected the costumes and set design to perhaps be slightly wanting, simply through lack of resources. However, I was impressed by the costuming of all of the characters, in particular Rosalind, who spent much of the play pretending to be a man, and this distinction between Rosalind-dressed-as-a-women and Rosalind-dressed-as-a-man was made perfectly clear by dressing her more masculinely while maintaining a consistent colour motif. There was musical accompaniment to the production (composed by Lucinda Bell), but not much of it: mostly it was used to make the audience settle down before each part of the show began, and a song to go along with the final wedding scene. I felt that the very talented musicians could have been used more – as perhaps backing to some more scenes, or during transitionary periods. Additionally, the band did twice play an instrumental arrangement of Gotye’s Somebody That I Used to Know, which was a slightly rogue choice – distracting from the actual performance slightly in a way which did not seem thematically relevant.

Overall, Green Templeton’s garden play production of As You Like It is a very impressively produced piece – the cast and crew are clearly all very talented. Despite some areas I believe could have been improved, the show was perfectly entertaining and engaging, as well as being easy to follow without feeling dumbed-down at all.

[As You Like It, staged by Green Templeton College, ran at the Green Templeton College Garden, June 7-8, 2026.]