SOURCE: Carnegy, Patrick. “Cool Customers.” Spectator 291, no. 9112 (29 March 2003): 57-8.

In the following review, Carnegy maintains that Gregory Thompson's emphasis on the dark, melancholic aspects of As You Like It in his Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) production would have been more compelling if not for the distraction of Nina Sosanya's overly masculine interpretation of Rosalind.

Stratford emerges from winter hibernation with an As You Like It that, not inappropriately, takes a chill view of this uneasy comedy. And this is certainly a welcome corrective to the RSC's previous effort, a mere two years ago, in which the Forest of Arden was a Liberty's bazaar for the display of luxuriant knitwear in the style of Kaffe Fassett.

This sort of thing tends to happen when there's a desire to duck the melancholic view of love that pervades the text. Rosalind's strategy is to enjoy it—for as long as she...