As You Like It by William Shakespeare at The Atkinson

I thoroughly understand why 'As you Like It' has not been staged at the National Theatre for 30 years. It has too many characters and a confusing  plot. However, it includes one of the playwright's most oft-quoted passages, the so-called 'Seven Ages of  Man' speech, beginning 'All the world's the stage' , as well as some familiar gems such as Touchstone's (Mark Benton)  description of his rustic girl-friend: 'An ill-favoured thing, but mine own'.

It was a real treat to see an RSC production streamed live on Thursday at the Atkinson in Southport, not least because it's only a fifteen minute walk from where I live.

This wasn't a production to change my view of the play,  but it was very entertaining - maybe not for the right reasons.

Set in the Forest of Arden, the action consists  of the interactions of  a number of  lovelorn and mistreated characters as they drift in and out of a 'clearing' , narrowly missing one another, much like the 'another part of the battlefield' convention of 'Macbeth' and 'Henry V'. The twist here is that they emerge from between the  'branches' of  dangling furniture.

It takes a stage with the capabilities of the Olivier to transform a 'Pyjama Game'-style  workshop into a forest. It was like watching  a slow-motion  explosion in an IKEA warehouse. Hinged chairs, tables and and desk-lamps remain suspended at different levels, spotlights piercing the gloom in a permanent winter twilight. Rehearsals must have been a nightmare.

The forest , like the air of Prospero's island, is full of strange sounds - made by actors concealed in the misty branches, who  hoot and howl and act as backing for the songs . The cast list describes them as 'Choir'. When all the charactes are rightfully matched and the mood change from the chill of man's cruelty to the celebration of love, they come into their own. It's  hard to imagine a more distracting and at the same time a more coherent setting for such a fragmented play.

All the lead performances were good, from the breathless Rosalind(Rosalie Craig)  dressed as a man and a quirky Amelie-riff Celia (Patsy Ferran) to Paul Chahidi's Oscar Wilde-inspired Jaques.

Comic relief was provided by hero Orlando's contest  with Charles, the Duke's wrestling champion,  given the huge disparity of size between the contestants, and a very funny later scene with various  members  dressed in Aran sweaters  on all fours, proving that even sheep can be imbued with  individual characters.

A Dragon Dance in Manchester

I thought I’d do less gadding about in Southport, but with three cities nearby, the opposite seems to be  true.

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When Radio Lancashire announced Chinese New Year Celebrations in Manchester would  take place at  the weekend, I decided to head to  Albert Square on Sunday afternoon. Roy, who seems to like walking about in northern  rain after all, was happy to accompany me.

I love a good dragon dance – as colourful as Chinese opera,  but shorter and more exciting. The technique’s similar to the that demonstrated  in the stage version of War Horse: well-managed poles  and precise  team work are of the essence.

 Still images do little justice to the spectacle of the rippling, glittery  huge-headed dragon  as it advances and recoils. It nearly  doubles back on itself as it wends its way behind the fan-waving women . Almost as important is loud accompaniment of  drums and clashing cymbals.

There’ll be plenty more gadding about -  this was an auspicious  start to the year of the monkey

A Trip to Wigan

For years I've written  occasional play reviews for a website called Remotegoat (don't ask me about the name - I must find out sometime). I don't get paid, but there's two free tickets and a programme in it for me, with drinks and snacks  if I review on a press night.

On average it take me about three hours to research and write about the performance next morning. I look up the play if I don't know it, (the Samuel French website is useful), plus background  on the  company and the actors.

'Curtain up on Murder' last night was the first play I've reviewed for over a year - another writing activity that moving to Southport interfered with.

It was on in Wigan, a town I haven't been to before but which is only half an hour on the train from Southport.

I'd heard of Wigan Pier as some kind of tourist attraction, and  I persuaded my partner to go early so we could visit. Sadly, although we went down to the canal-side site,  it was derelict . Even the nearby mill called Trencherfield only opens to vistors on Sunday.

Wigan has a pleasant market square but it was too cold to linger. We went into a shopping centre where we read in the Costa until it was time to eat in a local restaurant, picked from TripAdvisor on Google. It was a good choice, called Thai Corner, and our only regret was we didn't have more time to linger over the excellent food.

Thanks to Google maps we found the venue , St Michaels Hall, in a back street. The show was a most enjoyable spoof murder mystery. I posted my review to the  Remotegoat website this morning.

Victorian Dreamers

This small but almost perfectly formed exhibition draws on the Atkinson's own stock of beautifully restored Victorian art.  Mostly 'escapist' in an age of social anxiety, it  looks at the themes of travel,  storytelling, the antique past and nature to show a Victorian love for an idealised past that probably never existed. 

Ceramic  figurines, familiar from  antique shops and stately homes and the paintings of Highland cattle in natural landscapes depict areas of desirable retreat for the wealthy, then as now.

Working people are depicted as respectful , contentedly labouring in picturesque rural landscapes or praying in simple domestic interiors: comforting images in  an increasingly mechanised age. 

My favourite piece is this Wedgewood depiction of a classical scene by Camillo Pacetti, first made in Rome in 1790 : after the fall of Troy, Priam appeals to Achilles for  the return of  his son Hector's Body .

Victorian artists were restricted to  classical or biblical themes in their depiction of nude figures,  as in Ernest Normand's striking 1986 portrait of Pygmalion and Galatea at the moment when the statue comes to life and  John Collier's 1892  painting of a snake-entwined Lilith  as she plots to depose her rival, Eve,  in the Garden of Eden.

If the gilt frames and chocolate-box images have an air of unreality,  they had a lasting effect on  the national sensibility. Present-day politicians who retreat to  country mansions  after advocating hard work and thrift to  the working population,  our daily dose of The Archers on BBC radio and the justifying  of social inequality are all  part of the Victorian legacy,  as this exhibition reminds us.