Northern Broadsides' new production of Shakespeare comedy As You Like It

Under the fearless leader and founder Barrie Rutter, it wore its flat cap on its sleeve, if you’ll excuse the mixing of metaphors.

Since Laurie Sansom was announced as the company’s new artistic director, only the third in the company’s history, it has been clear that Northern Broadsides was bound in an entirely new direction. We got a hint of that direction with Sansom’s first production for the company, Quality Street.

That hit the stages in February 2020, a period that will be burned long into the memories of those who work in theatre. Barely a month into a planned national tour, the production closed – as did all productions – as a result of Covid.

Since then we’ve had a couple of intriguing hints as to the direction Sansom planned to take Broadsides – online events, podcasts, some Tennessee Williams in Sheffield – but now we finally get to see what the company will really look like under the ‘new’ man in charge.

As You Like It, which opened at the New Vic Theatre last month, is heading home to Yorkshire and it is being staged by a company, who are ‘fabulous Northern actors’ – so far so Broadsides – who ‘include non-binary and disabled performers’.

The idea, says Sansom, is to challenge audiences to imagine a new future. He’s clearly not afraid to plant flags.

“The Forest of Arden is a place where ‘if’ runs rampant. People adopt new names, new clothes and new lovers. They experience new feelings and dive into them willy-nilly, they play many parts and make many entrances and exits. It’s as if everyone has stepped through the wardrobe into another world but not without taking a lot of fabulous clothes with them,” he says.

Sansom has chosen the perfect Shakespeare to tell this kind of new future – the plot is one of the Bard’s typically complicated love stories with people disguised as different characters and genders in the woods.

The production is brought to life with an original set and high fashion costumes by E M Parry.

Set in a stylish but stifling court, where the Duke is all powerful and brute strength is championed over basic human decency, the high-spirited Rosalind and devoted cousin Celia are no longer welcome.

When they escape into the forest in disguise, they bump into the recent object of Rosalind’s affection, Orlando, leading to an elaborate game of fluid identity where all the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players.

“This new production takes us deep into the joyful possibilities of if, and asks if all the world’s a stage, can all the men and women be whoever they want to be?

“Escaping from the toxic entertainment empire presided over by the explosive and ruthless Duke Ferdinand, where now

even the drag queens aren’t allowed to step out of line, Rosalind, Celia and Touchstone make a break for it. They find themselves in a forest where gender, class and sexual desire seem fluid and as changeable as the seasons as old hierarchies crumble away.

“Of all of Shakespeare’s plays this feels the most restorative, opening up the possibility of making a new world based on open-hearted acceptance of each other and living in harmony with the natural world.

“This feels like a play for our time, challenging us to imagine a new future that is more playful, accepting and connected.”

Joe Morrow, whose first experience of Shakespeare was with a Broadsides production, plays Touchstone here.

Of this new direction the company appears to be heading, he says: “I think it’s necessary for all theatre to move with the times. Northern Broadsides has always challenged pre-conceived ideas of what Shakespeare ‘should’ be like. Barrie Rutter’s original idea was to go against the lofty received pronunciation productions by performing his work in a Northern voice, which made it accessible to people who may have been turned off by so called traditional versions.”

In a nutshell, Morrow nails it. It won’t be a surprise to hear long time fans of Broadsides grumbling when this production comes home, but any grumblers will be missing the point.

They will have cheered Rutter, rightly so, when he began his crusade – but their cheers were needed, because there were plenty who were grumbling about what he was doing. I suppose what I’m saying is, if you’re tempted to say ‘this is not how Broadsides is done’, remember that Broadsides was a direct response to those who would say ‘this is not how theatre is done’.

Morrow says: “It (Broadsides) has always challenged the class system since its first production and the inclusion and diversity

has moved with the times, as of course it should. Shakespeare has always been of and for ‘regular’ people, so the work on stage should reflect that.

“It is necessary for audiences to be able to see themselves on stage and that is done by casting a mix of

classes, races and genders as

well as actors that are deaf or disabled.”

He disagrees that this is a different direction.

“I think it is staying current and relevant, as it always has. As Rosalind says in the play, ‘time travels at diverse paces with diverse persons’ and so should theatre.”

Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, March 15 - 19. 01482 323638.

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