All The Bloody Shakespeare - As You Like It

I think you ought to know, I'm feeling very depressed.

As You Like It is Shakespeare doing the equivalent of a clip show. The whole play is filled with the kinds of things that show up in his earlier comedies.

We have:

• Brothers at odds with each other.

• An intelligent female cross-dresser

• A clown (Touchstone) making sheep jokes.

• Multiple couples in minor confusions.

• A Greek god inexplicably showing up.

• Lots and lots of weddings.

That said, it's much more polished than his earlier plays. The main plot is slow to start and most of the comedy comes from Orlando still be attracted to the woman he loves when she's dressed as a male shepherd. This is also the root of most of the sheep jokes.

As You Like It has one thing that's new to Shakespeare, and that's Jaques. Whilst all the bog-standard rom-com stuff is happening, Jaques' only role in the play is to stand back and moan about how rubbish it all is.

Jaques is a mixture of Marvin the Paranoid Android and Menander's grouch (or Oscar the Grouch if you're not big on comedy from ancient Greece). If you don't know who those guys are, try to picture my cousin Glyn.

Jaques is so cynical, witty and detached from the play that he feels like Shakespeare talking to an audience he thinks are idiots. The play's title suggests a frustrated bard throwing up his hands and screaming, "Fine, I will do more terrible plays like Two Gentlemen of Verona, since Julius Caesar isn't good enough for you!"

This is the sort of thing Jaques says:

"give me leave To speak my mind, and I will through and through Cleanse the foul body of th’ infected world, If they will patiently receive my medicine."

The infected world pollutes the human body. It's pithy and nihilistic, just as I like it.

As the romantic intrigue grows Jaques does his best to swerve it all saying, "I thank you for your company, but, good faith, I had as lief have been myself alone."

Jaques then goes on to deliver Shakespeare's best monologue outside of the tragedies, the seven ages of man speech.

The rest of the play goes as you might expect, lots of cuckold/horns jokes, a few hey nonny nos and everything works out fine for the lovers.

Jaques wishes everybody well, and having found favour with the Duke is asked to stay at the party. Jaques does not stay and instead opts to go and live in an abandoned cave. Which is just one of the reasons why Jaques is my favourite Shakespeare character, even though the rest of the play is generally a bit dull.

It is also worth noting that Rosalind is one of the most developed female characters in the Shakespeare comedies and much less irritating than Portia.

She gets the last word in an epilogue that eases the impact of Jaques walking away from the play in disgust.

"It is not the fashion to see the lady the epilogue; but it is no more unhandsome than to see the lord the prologue."

Quite progressive, and he also manages to avoid his usual hate speech issues.

3/5 - Lots of wonderful characters doing nothing much to excited about