There’s nothing especially wrong with Stephen Unwin’s production of Shakespeare’s pastoral comedy.
Yet it takes so few risks that it succeeds only in being rather ordinary.
Designed by Jonathan Fensom, the staging has a glowing, autumnal feel, with the action played out on a heap of leaf-covered earth, beneath a golden bough and amid fallen apples. There are some nice aural details from sound designer John Leonard, too – distant peacocks in the courtly scenes, baa-ing sheep in the Forest of Arden – though Corin Buckeridge’s noodling tin-whistle music can be irksome.
Still, this feels a fruitful environment to nurture young love: Georgina Rich’s Rosalind and David Sturzaker’s Orlando are sweetly appealing, if not intensely passionate. There’s also a witty Celia from Phoebe Fox and an arrestingly pretentious, supercilious Jacques from Adrian Lukis. Michael Feast’s fool, Touchstone, though, is infected by the blandness that suffuses the production. It’s all nice enough, but none of it seems to matter very much.