The Bite Magazine - Autumn/Winter 2019 - Issue 26

bite theatre she will marry William. Audrey agrees. She then acquires a promise from the Duke that if Rosalind were available he would grant her to Orlando. He too agrees. Ganymede and the cousin leave the gathering but soon return as Rosalind and Celia accompanied by Hymen, the god of marriage, who officiates the various marriages. Festivities ensue and are heightened when Duke Frederick, and his army, arrive claiming he had a vision and message delivered by a holy man telling him to become a monk. As such he returns the throne to Duke Senior. And it’s a happy-ever-after ending. Lucy, especially, impressed me with her acting in disguise of a man. The exaggerated cockiness and bravado fed into the overall enjoy- ment of watching the story play out. There were a good few times within the play that I totally forgot that it was a ‘she’ performing the ‘he’. David’s Orlando too was amusing to watch, from the sorrow per- formed from his brother being outstandingly cruel to witnessing him becoming a love’s fool for Rosalind, and even Ganymede, to the nervousness of his quests both in the wrestling match and later to finding Celia in the forest, to his cockiness upon bumping into Duke Senior’s camp; David played the character in a way that grabbed your heart and tapped empathy from it throughout. Other characters that helped with the portrayal of wit and joy were Adam, played by Richard Clews; whose character reminded you of a Billy Connolly crossed with an eccentric Kenny Everett, nuances and all! He was a riot! The actor who played Audrey, played by deaf actress Charlotte Arrowsmith, signed her lines through William, played by Tom Dawze, adding for us, the audience, an even higher Sophie Khan Levy and Lucy Phelps Antony Byrne