Fringe Festivals should present challenging, experimental and risky productions for forward-thinking audiences seeking less conventional dance, drama, music, poetry, comedy and film. Buxton Festival Fringe, established now for 35 years, runs concurrently with the Buxton Festival, each year hosting 600 varied performances over two weeks across many venues in the town.
So, take a severe adaptation of one of Shakespeare’s lesser comedies, add an energetic young cast, a live band, some flower power and modern songs and mix an audience expected to promenade from scene to scene. And then set the production in the chilly chambers of a limestone cave far from the centre of the town… a textbook mix for a diverting fringe production.
With a cast of only seven, As You Like It was necessarily cut to the bare nub: running time was just over an hour and major characters such as Touchstone, Duke Frederick and Oliver were notably absent. Act I scenes i and ii were cut completely. But, this tight adaptation took us straight to the heart of the story: Rosalind disguising herself as Ganymede to pursue Orlando at the “Forest of Arden Festival”. The small but engaged audience was immersed immediately into the story. The tight acting spaces allowed for close contact with the action.
A confident Rosalind contrasted well with the brooding Jaques; “All the world’s a stage” was perfectly delivered and I wanted to see more of this terrific actor. The proud and sassy Phebe made a fine match for the light-headed Silvius and she offered much bawdy humour.
Each scene took us deeper into the cave system until a magnificent reading of Act IV, scene i in which Rosalind berates Jaques for being melancholy and Orlando learns how to woo Rosalind.
The performance was delivered freely in a dynamic, conversational style with much movement. The “cave rave” theme was, however, disappointingly underplayed—only than the fixed cave lighting used for tours was employed resulting in a mostly gloomy aspect to this most pastoral of Shakespeare’s plays.
But, with surprises, songs, humour and a finale which had cast and audience dancing underground to Arctic Monkeys, As You Like It was a warmly received production with much to enjoy.