As You Like It: Cheek By Jowl, 1995

Celia: Simon Coates (left); Rosalind: Adrian Lester; Director: Declan Donnellan; Designer: Nick Ormerod; Opening Date: 23 January 1995, Albery Theatre.

"Here again is Adrian Lester's captivating Rosalind, hesitant, trembling, sweetly impulsive, sheltering a book between cupped palms as though it were a newborn puppy...On a beige box set props are minimal. Long after we have entered the Forest of Arden no trees are visible - until they are actually wanted, so that sonnets can be pinned to them, whereupon green streamers roll down from above." Jeremy Kingston, Times, 27 January 1995

Despite such praise, Lester was too simply feminine in the role, losing the detachment required to sustain the role's levels of deception. Coates was much tougher and more authentic. HMR

Photographer: Donald Cooper. Courtesy of Arts and Humanities Data Service.