As You Like It, Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park, London

Raining, pouring, never boring

"Come hither, come hither, come hither!/ Here shall he see/ No enemy/ But winter and rough weather" sings Amiens, one of the lords exiled to the Forest of Arden in As You Like It. Those words had an ironic ring at the press performance of Rachel Kavanaugh's spirited revival of Shakespeare's comedy at the Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park, for it was "the English summer and rough weather" that was the implacable foe on everyone's minds.

For the first half, the rain contented itself by merely alternating downpours with teasingly brief periods of respite, but after the interval it really put its mind to sustaining a sousing onslaught. The management were faced with a tricky decision. The premiere had had to be suspended in mid-flow the previous night. If the performance were called off again, the actors would be left with more wasted adrenalin; it would be some days before the production re-entered the repertoire; it might be difficult to get the hack pack back for a third visit.

So they elected to press forward in sopping conditions where there was a distinct risk of the cast suffering from erosion, never mind contracting chills. Christopher Goodwin's fastidious Jaques is the only courtier who carries a brolly, a touch presumably intended to point up his prissy professional cynicism. In the circumstances, it seemed to betoken the last word in provident wisdom. But if the cast were less than overjoyed at having put on a show that often looked as though it was aiming for a Duke of Edinburgh award rather than an Olivier, this was never for a moment apparent. A characterful company, in which John Hodgkinson, resembling a Victorian bookie, makes an outstandingly incisive and quick-talking Touchstone, swept through with defiant energy.

It might seem like taking coals to Newcastle to create a forest in Regent's Park, but Francis O'Connor's design for a production that is set in the 19th century makes its own strong visual statement, with tall rectangular wooden columns that are turned to reveal incised gold lettering when Orlando pins up his verses to Rosalind. Playing the hero, the excellent Benedict Cumberbatch brings out the eager, emotional neediness in this ill-treated younger son, while with her boyish bob and flickeringly mischievous eyes, Rebecca Johnson cuts a captivating figure in her gentleman farmer's disguise as Ganymede. Though they had to throw themselves down and lie in various attitudes of love-languor on a sodden stage, nothing dampened the youthful ardour of this couple.

The contact that the production had achieved, against all the odds, with an audience that was peering at it through the gaps in a sea of umbrellas was triumphantly demonstrated in the final sequence. There was magic as well as driving rain in the air when Johnson delivered the epilogue under slowly fading lights. At the curtain call, the dripping cast applauded the dripping punters and for once this gesture did not seem ingratiating but rather well-deserved.

Ian Talbot, the Open Air Theatre's artistic director, bounded on to the stage to add his compliments to the troupers on both sides of the footlights. He said it reminded him of another spectacularly inclement evening at the park when he'd overheard the conversation of two old ladies on the way out. "That was the best Dream I've ever seen." "Yes, pity it had to be a wet one."

To 7 September (020-7486 2431/1933)