Hooray! It is officially summer and you know that it’s official because ELSF are out in parks causing Bard-themed mayhem. For various complicated reasons, we weren’t able to go to the Highams Park dates this year so we decided to go to the Friday evening at Lloyd Park. And we weren’t only there to see the show – VK was effectively their support act, performing a monologue from the Scottish Play as a prelude to the main event. She’s part of their youth theatre, so it’s lovely of ELSF to find a way to include some of the students without having too many extra rehearsals (cause yknow, this kid is also in two other shows right now…there’s a lot of drama going on. Just to make a change)
Anyway, happy to say that she did very well, even if it wasn’t entirely clear when she’d finished her speech, But eventually she got a rapturous round of applause and settled down to enjoy the actual show with the rest of us.
Because she needed to be there early to rehearse, we had the opportunity to wander round Lloyd Park a bit. VK deemed it “all very whimsical”, even tho the water seems to be covered with algae. We bought chips for dinner from Five Star fish bar and them on a bench near the William Morris Gallery, which again was deemed whimsical:
We had raised our game in terms of seating this year and brought enough camping chairs for the four of us. They all fit in my shopping trolley, just about, but it definitely helped that Nathan gave us a lift. He dropped VK and I off and then he and Roo walked back down later. The thought of finding parking anywhere near Lloyd Park seemed a bit daunting so this was the most logical solution. And the outcome was that we got a row of four camping chairs, halfway back, and could enjoy the show in comfort. To be blunt, I had buggered up my knee earlier that day so comfort was pretty high on the agenda.
It was also pretty much perfect weather for outdoor Shakespeare. I know! After the sunburn of 2022, the storms of 2023 and the will-it-won’t-it of 2024, we finally had a show that was unambiguously perfect. Warm but not too hot, sun just dipping down behind the trees so there wasn’t too much glare (after the first few minutes) and no rain. Long may this continue!
So, onto the show itself. And after a few years of this there are some familiar faces. I’m pretty sure we saw Emilia Harrild as Juliet in the aforementioned storm of 2023. And Ursula Early is VK’s drama teacher so she’s a very familiar face but we’ve also seen her as the Nurse in 2023, Beatrice in 2024 and Olivia in 2022. Here they revive their nurse/Juliet dynamic as Rosalind and Celia although Rosalind is a very different character to Juliet and has a lot more agency over her life. If only Juliet had donned a flat cap and run away to the forest, her life might have turned out very differently.
The rest of the cast were – I think – new for 2025 although I’m prepared to be corrected on that. And it was the first time we’d seen a production with the community cast so that added an extra dynamic as well. As ever, there was something of a contemporary feel to the show, with added asides from the cast and some very modern tunes. I like to think that ELSF are slowly creeping forward in time – the first show we saw (“Twelfth Night”) was very 80s, “Romeo and Juliet” had a 90s kinda feel and this latest production had some songs from the noughties. Along with the emo-esque black and white stripes it felt like it could have been set around 2007. Which begs the question, which era do they go to for next year’s production? Is there any recognisable 2010s culture that could enhance a bit of the Bard? And the year after that, are they going to have caught up with themselves?
In this version, Rosalind is bit of an It Girl, being papped on the carpet and appearing in perfume ads. Orlando (Luke Martin) has the Walthamstow uniform of striped t-shirt and fedora. Charles the wrestler is gender-swapped to be Charlie (Blossom Timothy) and Touchstone (Ethan Dillon) is a hipster in shades and manbun, stealing nachos from an unsuspecting audience member during the speech about pancakes. With a smallish cast, there is obviously a lot of doubling up on roles so Blossom Timothy also plays shepherdess Phoebe and the singing role of Amiens. Ethan Dillon is the banished Duke Senior and Ursula plays servant Adam and country girl Audrey as well as Celia. Completing the cast are George Prové as Jaques, Duke Frederick and Corin, Charlie Jennings as Oliver and Silvius and apprentice actor Peggy Barnes as Le Beau, William and Jaques de Boys. Yes, there are two characters called Jaques in this play. I’m not saying Will was running short of inspo when it came to the cast list but he didn’t have the Mumsnet baby name forum to resort to when he was struggling. Oh, and a lot of the cast also play goats, which Nathan found hilarious, especially Kevin. They might be sheep now I think about it. Whatever they were, Kevin was a real scene stealer.
There are probably bits of this play that feels very familiar – when Jaques the First spits out the “Seven Ages of Man” speech, it’s a classic bit of Shakespeare that has little relevance to the plot but heaps of poetic symbolism. But some other parts of the play might feel less well-known – even Shakespeare himself might not remember every single sub-plot he included. I often think of “As You Like It” as the play that tries to go one better than all the others. Where “Midsummer Night’s Dream” has a triple wedding, this one concludes with a quadruple wedding. There’s so much plot needed to facilitate the ending that some of the relationships – Celia and Oliver, for example – get skimmed over very quickly in the script. It’s a credit to ELSF that they manage to cover all this ground in a version that’s just under two hours including an interval. It was pacey but didn’t feel overly rushed, at least no more than it does reading the original (“no sooner met but they look’d; no sooner look’d but they lov’d”…ah, if only life was that easy!)
The other way in which “As You Like It” tries to best MSND is with the gender swapping. Where MSND would have had a boy playing a girl playing a boy for Flute/Thisbe, here they’d have had a boy playing a girl pretending to be a boy pretending to be a girl. And this being Shakespeare, everyone is taken in. Anyway, I swore I’d stop nitpicking 400-year-old plays and I clearly haven’t so I’ll move on.
What I love about the ELSF productions is the pure mayhem of them. Even as characters are delivering Shakespeare’s lines at the front, other characters are walking away in a sulk muttering to themselves or distracting the audience by trying to eat their snacks (Kevin!). The characters use the space not only at the front, back and sides but also, on occasions, through the audience. Once again, an audience member was pressed into service to conduct a wedding and he looked suitably bemused. This is accessible Shakespeare – made relevant to a modern audience yet still retaining much of the original poetic language. Dance routines abound and the songs are sung heartily. As well as carrying the main weight of the plot, Emilia Harrild also added some cello to one of the numbers (who knew that was such a portable instrument?).
There are puppets and physical altercations and some beautiful visual effects, like this outfit of Jacques:
credit: @marbleandskyphotography
So even for the younger ones who might not pick up all the nuances of the different romances played by the same people in different hats (“Mincemeatcore”), there is always something to look at and always fun to be had. I think that’s true of all of the ELSF productions we’ve seen so far, even the one that was both a tragedy and extremely rainy. There’s just always something joyful about watching people who really love the material and aren’t afraid to play around with it a little.
There are some moments of intensity as well, such as when Duke Francis threatens Rosalind and this is played straight for maximum drama. But by the next scene, we’re hanging with the chill dudes of Arden and all is well again. Overall, this is one of the lighter plays but that’s perfect for the setting -I’m not sure how “Titus Andronicus” would work over an M&S picnic hamper. It is constantly entertaining and feels very swift on its feet. There is also a bar, which probably helps the audience to loosen up and enjoy the show. Lloyd Park also had toilets open at the café, which probably helped with the after effects of the bar.
I always recommend ELSF shows, even when they don’t feature my child, and I have no hesitation in recommending this one to you all too. It’s affordable, friendly and local (all of these things are huge pluses when your theatre kids are demanding shows on a weekly basis). This year there are more venues than ever and they’re exploring South-East London and North London as well as just the usual E postcodes. There is a full list here, along with all the info you might need. I can only hope the weather is as perfect for you as it was for us.
No need for a disclaimer as I paid for tickets but all opinions remain honest and my own.
