King Lear, Old Vic, London<br></br>As You Like It, Swan, Stratford-Upon-Avon<br></br>As You Like It, Tobacco Factory, Bristol<br></br>Fragile Land, Hampstead, London

Howl, howl, howl: it's Santa on the prowl

Timothy West first took the title role in King Lear, aged 37. What bravura, one so young portraying Shakespeare's old, grief-ravaged royal. Unfortunately, three decades on, it proves harder to get excited about West revisiting the part for English Touring Theatre. At the risk of sounding like Goneril, one can't help observing that Stephen Unwin's troupe doesn't fully merit its residency at the grand Old Vic. On the other hand, ETT are fulfilling a need, bringing this great tragedy into the commercial West End where almost everything else seems to be inane garbage right now.

One virtue of Unwin's staging is its plain-dealing. Neil Warmington's set is a minimalist grey box with a wooden dais. The downside is this can look like a 1950's RSC production as courtiers strike tableaux in Tudor robes. The more modern touches also seem intrusive as a photo of the moon glows in a metal frame, like a widescreen TV on high. But the verse-speaking throughout is remarkably clear. The larger dramatic building-blocks are laid strikingly bare too by the cast's stand-forward-and-deliver, no-nonsense style. In the long run though, the simple approach is problematic because fine detailing isn't attended to by Unwin. While his actors keep up the narrative pace, hardly anyone brings their words into pin-sharp focus. Jessica Turner's Goneril seems too mild, never quite thrusting home her verbal poniards. Rachel Pickup, as an elegant blonde Cordelia, only superficially plays impassioned warmth, while David Cardy's cockney Fool hobbles round like a cross between Del Boy and Quasimodo. Far better is Michael Cronin's doddery but brave Gloucester.

In many ways you can't fault West. He appears cuddly at first, almost like Father Christmas giving away his kingdom. Then a mean look glimmers in his hooded, piggy eyes. A peremptory ruler, this Lear's drive is shot through with hints of encroaching frailty (a masticating jaw and seizures around his heart). Yet he dashes through his lines, so fits of rage and of tenderness come over as emotional washes. Still, he welds comedy with fury and in his final moments becomes heartrending – kissing Cordelia's lifeless fingers one by one, desperately hugging her head, then slumping softly to the ground beside her.

The Forest of Arden in As You Like It is, of course, not as inhospitable as Lear's blasted heath. Nevertheless, in Gregory Thompson's directorial debut for the RSC, Orlando's aged servant, Adam (Tim Barlow), is so cold and exhausted that he cannot be restored by sweet music – unlike Lear in Act Four. Startlingly, Barlow dies as Martin Hutson's Orlando wanders off with his new woodland friends.

Thompson, who's been directing Shakespeare for several years with his fringe company AandBC, has other bold ideas for the cross-dressing romantic comedy. For instance, the ensemble playfully doubles as a shepherd's flock. So Aaron Neil who plays Orlando's rotten brother looks – as he chews on imaginary grass – as if he's ruminating on his black-sheepish behaviour, before reappearing as a reformed man. I think Thompson will prove worth the nurture Michael Boyd is offering as the RSC's new AD. Nevertheless, this staging is hit and miss. The sheep joke is milked and one senses several company members are muttering not just "baa" but also "humbug" during the animal antics. I loved Colin Peters' set at first. Its icy slope swings up like a bridge as the characters head for Arden, revealing lichen-sprouting, green planks on its underside. These suggest tree trunks and, simultaneously, a high aerial shot of English fields and copses. But Thompson doesn't know when to stop and has people playing trees too.

As for the sexual ambiguities at the heart of this comedy, Nina Sosanya's Rosalind transforms effortlessly into a lithe lad. Incognito, her slighting of the female sex is febrile, suggesting she's seriously damaged by the loss of paternal and avuncular love. But Sosanya is low on charm. Naomi Frederick, loving yet bruised as the gooseberry Celia, is more winning.

The Tobacco Factory's shoestring-budget production of As You Like It turns out to be more enjoyable – maybe because one has higher expectations of the RSC.

Andrew Hilton's cast are also in Georgian gear, treading bare boards with just some grass between the cracks. The play's layers of homosexual attraction aren't acutely explored, but Saskia Portway's Rosalind has a warm twinkle in her eye. John Mackay's Jacques is also the best I've seen – not a mysterious melancholic but a laughable, needy, young poseur with a mordant wit when mocking others.

The Fragile Land in Tanika Gupta's new play is contemporary, multicultural Britain. Her London comp school kids have all been uprooted – from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Leeds. One is white and racial tensions are brewing. The Asian girls, slipping out on dates, dread their strict parents' wrath and the nice guys may be cads after a shag or a passport to avoid deportation. If I were a teacher, I'd probably take my class to this issue-raising play. But Gupta's writing is schematic with dire dream sequences, and the young actors in Paul Miller's production – in Hampstead's basement studio – are uneven. Topical but not top quality.

k.bassett@independent.co.uk

'King Lear': Old Vic, London SE1 (0207 7369 1722), to 19 April; 'As You Like It': Swan, Stratford-upon-Avon (01789 403403), to 8 Nov; 'As You Like It': Tobacco Factory, Bristol (0117 902 0344), to 26 April; 'Fragile Land': Hampstead, London NW3 (020 7722 9301), to 12 April