Someone at the RSC must like As You Like It since this is the third production they’ve staged in as many years. In 2023 Geraldine James was Rosalind in an elegiac production whose genuinely winning feature was that many of the cast were of pensionable age. The following year saw an outdoor presentation which I remember for its jolly music and ensemble spirit. Now, under the inventive direction of Daniel Evans, we are invited to look at the play in yet another light.

To begin with, this is As You Like It with an entirely male cast so that we share something of the experience of Shakespeare’s audience, though with grown men instead of boys in the four females roles. The US actor Jonathan Groff offers up a brisk, strapping Rosalind while Fisayo Akinade provides a more supple, feminine Celia and one who seems to be having a great time too. The alliance between this pair  can sometimes seem like a standard girls’ boarding-school friendship and to have the cousins played by men makes us appreciate afresh the authentic bond linking them.

And they need such mutual support because Duke Frederick, who has usurped his older brother Duke Senior (Gary Wilmot in both parts, respectively chill and warm), really is a tyrant in the making. Surrounded by a black-clad entourage, he loves nothing better than a testosterone-charged wrestling match; when he slaps Celia for her defence of Rosalind there is a gasp from the audience. The Act One set (Anisha Fields), with a stage floor like a frozen pond and an unbroken white backdrop, makes for a cold court, something which is often underplayed in the drama.

Arden is represented by a expanse of sheep-nibbled turf backed by a great slope of long grasses, winding paths and rock that towers over the characters like an arrested green wave. This isn’t a piece of pastoral, more a chunk of real-life landscape brought in by the truckload. A Welsh landscape, as it happens, to judge by the accents of some of the forest’s inhabitants and by their harmonious singing. The costumes (Colin Richmond) have a ragged lived-in quality which contrasts with the militaristic sheen of the court outfits.

As a trespasser into this not-quite-paradise, Elliot Barnes-Worrell is a straightforward and clear-spoken Orlando, a foil to the more devious Rosalind. Caleb Roberts is effective too as Oliver, at first contemptuous of his brother and then managing the transition – one of many changes in a play of sudden shifts – to the penitent lover of Celia. Richard McCabe gives the most affecting Jaques I’ve seen, at first appearing like a sozzled afternoon dandy in a Soho pub and then catching himself by surprise as he reaches the end of the famous seven ages of man speech (‘Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything’).

You can really believe it when he announces at the end that he’s going to join the equally changed Duke Frederick and turn hermit.

The broadly comic characters in Arden are all well-realised in a production that plays close attention to the text. Among many in the cast making their RSC debut, Rhys Parry Jones is the ‘true labourer’ Corin as well as a rather butch Hymen while Tim Phoebe provides a prim and proper Phoebe.

There was a very extended glitch on the Press Night at Stratford when the great white backdrop jammed in its ascent and prevented the emergence of the Forest of Arden. The audience, I’m happy to say, showed British phlegm and patience and greeted the eventual resumption of the action with applause and cheers. They did likewise with a standing ovation at the conclusion of this thoroughly interesting and idiosyncratic production of As You Like It.

★★★★☆ Philip Gooden, 7 October

It’s 1957 and we’re in Pittsburgh at the heart of a black working-class community. The setting is the porch and yard of a meagre property belonging to garbage man Troy Maxson, his wife Rose and son Cory. Troy is an uncompromising figure, attractive but domineering, the pivot around whom the other characters revolve. They include Lyons, an older son by another woman, his brother Gabe, and his friend and drinking partner, Bono.

This impressive Leeds Playhouse/Headlong revival of August Wilson’s classic drama highlights both universal aspects of family life and ones particular to a moment in American black history. Yes, it’s about infidelity, masculine authority, clashing ambitions and the tension between generations, but director Daniel Bailey’s intense production also shows how every aspect of daily existence cannot help but be filtered through the prism of race.

At the start Troy – a magnetic performance by Ray Fearon – is angry that a ‘colored’ can’t be promoted to driving a garbage truck. He’s resentful that Cory might get somewhere as a baseball player, believing he was held back from similar success by racial discrimination. When the easy-going Bono (Everal A Walsh) tells him that ‘Times have changed…You just come along too early’, Troy’s angry response is ‘There ought not never have been no time called too early!’, which simultaneously makes a character point and underlines the long-standing injustices of the American system.

Madeline Appiah as Rose, subtly conveying her love and occasional exasperation with her husband in the first half, really comes into her own in the second act with a moving outburst that shifts the dynamic between the couple. Josh Tedeku is similarly effective as young Cory, fearful of his father but determined to strike out on his own. The older son Lyons (Michael Ahomka-Lindsay) is an aspiring jazz player, a cool cat always destined for disappointment because his father won’t come to his performances (‘I don’t like that Chinese music.’).

Family conflict is at the centre of Fences but it is leavened by affection and humour. Ambiguity too. Troy is loving enough towards Gabe, the younger brother who sees visions as a result of a head wound, but he also takes advantage of the compensation which the war veteran receives. Gabe, in an affecting performance by Simon-Anthony Rhoden, opens and closes the drama as he plays on the trumpet which forever dangles round his neck. The angel Gabriel or a benignly mad middle-aged man? Both perhaps.

Troy is, in effect, the dramatist of his own life and he spins tales which keep his family (and the audience) riveted. We get a sense of the black experience through the first half of the twentieth century and a full-length portrait of a conflicted man, one who is obsessed with repairing the yard fence, both an image of the coldness between himself and his sons and the barrier which, in an impassioned monologue, Troy imagines as keeping death and his sickle at bay.

This is a memorable revival, with lighting (Jai Morjaria) running from ice blue to smoky orange and reflecting the shifts of the music (Khalil Madovi) from frantic to warm. The naturalistic set by Lily Arnold is more complicated than first appears and that might serve as a metaphor for a production which deservedly received a standing ovation on the night I went.

★★★★★ Philip Gooden, 1 October 2026

With thanks to StageTalk

Photography credit: Tyler Fayose

Format [max. 50 words]:

WHO: Who are you? (name only)

WIP (Work in progress): What you are currently working on or other news (max 20 words)

WANTS: What do you need help with from WIO members? [Optional]

OFFERS: How could you help other members? [Optional]

CONTACT: [email, etc]

Who: John Dougill

WIP: Currently writing a book about Boarding School Syndrome

Wants:  To hear from boarding school survivors

Offers: Happy to talk about my 35 years in Japan

Contact: j.e.dougill@gmail.com

Who: Heather Dunmore

WIP: Developing an absurdist play; working on a drama for television with another writer

Wants: An agent would be good; contacts to pitch the TV piece and a radio drama

Contact:  heatherdunmore@btinternet.com

Who: Kamal D Lathar

Who: John Gittings

Who: Lance Pettitt

WIP: Editing first draft of debut novel, set in interwar period; and short story about an affair between two Irish writers.

Wants: securing an agent

Offers: Can help with writing projects on Ireland in twentieth century (fiction, non-fiction, cinema); and act as reader for grant applications

Contact: lance.pettitt@conted.ox.ac.uk

Who: Kate Venables

WIP: Finished first novel

Wants: Looking for an agent – suggestions welcome

Offers: Can help with sources for WW2 history projects

Contact: kate.venables@stx.ox.ac.uk

Who: Peter Tickler

WIP: Have just written the first draft of my latest murder mystery – Whatever happened to Danny?  Oxford-based and cosy.

Wants: Looking for an agent and a beta reader

How: Happy to chat about published vs self-published               

Contact: petertickler@btinternet.com

Who: Yang-May Ooi

WIP: working on family memoir about Home and Belonging, which evolved from my online project at www.BelongingAcrossCultures.uk

Wants: would love to hear what Home and Belonging mean to you, and to celebrate, commiserate and connect over all things writerly

Contact: contact@tigerspirit.co.uk

Who: Robert Bullard

WIP: Non-fiction book coach with 10+ years experience – drawing on my previous work as an author, journalist (feature writer for national newspapers), and a report writer (as a consultant).

Wants: Looking for non-fiction book clients, who may want to work with me individually or join a small, self-supporting group of other writers.

Contact: robert@perfecttext.org

Who: Sarah Watkinson

WIP: How the Woods Work – worked-up proposal for expert (and endorsed) study of different British woodlands in the four seasons

Wants: Looking for an agent. Any suggestions?

Contact: sarah.watkinson@biology.ox.ac.uk

Who: Jake Lynch

WIP: Developing audio narration, looking for novels to narrate

Wants: To hear from WiO members seeking audio versions of novels at introductory rates, recorded in professional studio

Contact: jakemlynch@hotmail.com

Who: Patti McCarthy

WIP: currently finishing off Gap Year Granny, a travel memoir/retirement reframe.

Wants: to chat to other members targeting retirees and to hear of any groups who might welcome her as a speaker.

Contact: Patti2404@outlook.com

Who: Bruce Hugman, WiO Chair

WIP: Currently completing a book of maverick popular philosophy and his memoir, Out of Bounds Vol II. Relishing the services of an agent for the first time.

Offers: Drafting, copy-editing [£]

Contact: brucehugman@hotmail.com

Is there support or information you need that other members might be able to provide or that you could offer them?

If you’d like to share such information, WiO member Patti McCarthy has offered to collate your contributions in what we’re calling our Work in Progress (WIP) listing.

We’ll post the list here on the Noticeboard page of the website, maybe in the WiO Newsletter (The Oxford Writer) and occasionally by email to everyone.

If you like the idea, please send your contribution, max 50 words, to Patti at: Patti2404@outlook.com

Here’s two items as examples, from Patti and your Chair, Bruce Hugman.

Patti McCarthy – currently putting the last touches to Gap Year Granny a travel memoir/ retirement reinvention story. Keen to hear from others targeting retirees and about any speaking and/or sales opportunities. . Patti2404@outlook.com

Bruce Hugman – currently completing a book of maverick popular philosophy and the second volume of his memoir, Out of Bounds. Relishing the services of an agent for the first time in his life. brucehugman@hotmail.com

Let’s keep up with each other’s news and help where we can.

Examination Schools, High Street, Oxford

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If you’d like to volunteer to help on the WiO stand for a hour or two, please contact: Liu Hong at: liu.hong@hotmail.co.uk

If you help us out you can have a small space for displaying and selling your books.

The organisers promote the event as follows:

Welcome to the Oxford Indie Book Fair (OXIB) — a vibrant celebration of independent publishing, bold storytelling, and creative community. OXIB brings together independent presses, authors, poets, illustrators, and readers for a day dedicated to discovering books you won’t find everywhere else. More than just a marketplace, OXIB is a meeting place — a space for conversation, collaboration, and inspiration. Visitors meet authors face-to-face, hear the stories behind the stories, attend talks and readings, and connect with a thriving community that champions creativity and originality all for free.

Booking for tables has just opened: contact: https://www.oxfordindiebookfair.co.uk/event/2026-autumn-book-fair/