As You Like It, Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon

Love gone sturdy and sensible

I can't think when I've seen a less romantic Forest of Arden than the one in Gregory Thompson's production. The stage is dominated at first by a heavy platform tilted toward the audience and covered with a carpet of snow to represent the chilly dukedom of the usurping Frederick and the manor of the cruel Oliver de Boys. When the duke's niece and daughter (Rosalind and Celia) and Oliver's brother Orlando head for the woods, the snow is removed to show green-stained planks, which are later separated and stood on end.

In the scene in which Orlando, dotty over Rosalind, posts love poems on more trees than there are planks, the extra ones are represented by the company, who stand, arms raised, for what seems an age. This forest of actors also badly obscures the sight lines. The trees then become sheep, dropping their branches to the ground, waggling their bottoms, and bleating. I wish that, unsheeplike, they had revolted at this nonsense, especially at being made to chorus "Au-drey, Au-drey," after that fleeing goatherd. Later, instead of going offstage for a nap, Celia falls asleep in front of us, and in the following deer-slaying scene, is a stand-in for the carcass, borne aloft by the huntsmen ­ a conceit that may confuse first-timers.

Otherwise, this is an unexceptional As You Like It. Most of the performances are functional, none brilliant; a few are charming. The last category covers the minor comic parts ­ Natasha Gordon's hot little number of a shepherdess, vibrating first with annoyance at her persistent swain, then with excitement at her rebuffs from Rosalind in her boy's disguise; Patricia Gannon's sweetly gormless Audrey, as surprised as she is delighted at having somehow snagged the jester Touchstone. Naomi Frederick as the nice but dim Celia balances those two qualities well, her innocence accentuated by the single sausage curl bobbing against each cheek.

Martin Hutson's Orlando, however, is a washout from the first, when we see him sobbing his heart out on a servant's breast. It beggars belief that this cry-baby should challenge the duke's wrestler ­ indeed, when he accidentally wins, he gawps with astonishment. His attraction to Nina Sosanya's Rosalind does not suggest two hearts in tune but the rabbit's subjection to the cobra. Sosanya seems uncomfortable in court dress, much happier striding about in boots and breeches. When she turns on Orlando with "Where have you been all this while?" she sounds less like an anxious lover than Mrs Andy Capp. Michael Hadley, as both dukes, is barely middle class.

The verse is spoken clearly and sensibly, but one listens in vain for a voice that is of a suitably musical tenor for this woodland wooing. The songs, as well, are done in a manner that is sturdy rather than beautiful, the keynote of a production that hardly casts a strong enough spell to keep us enchanted for three and a half hours.