Actor Will Beynon comes out on stage playing a lute, joined gradually by his fellows singing in rounds about the joys of life and love.

So began the performance of As You Like It by the Lord Chamberlain's Men's in the hallowed surrounds of Norwich Cathedral's cloisters.

One of Shakespeare's most popular 'rom coms', this was a welcome return to the lighter side of the Bard's cannon after last year's tour of the bloodthirsty Macbeth.

At its heart, this is a show about love in all its various forms.

Four as-yet uncoupled pairs find themselves in the Forest of Arden, free from the constraints of their former lives.

There are some contrived yet hilarious gender-bending situations.

At one point we have the male actor Ben Lynn playing the noblewoman Rosalind, disguised as a boy shepherd, contriving to have the noble Orlando woo her (sorry him!) as a means of 'curing' his love for Rosalind, who he is, of course, talking to anyway.

But beneath the show's jovial tone are surprisingly deep waters. After all, this is the play where the character Jaques famously reflects on 'the seven ages of man': the world's ephemeral nature and our changing role within it, and life's inevitable 'entrances' and 'exits'.

One if its great charms is how even though the cousins Rosalind and Celia take on alter egos, they eventually learn to be comfortable in their own skin.

Before the show started there was an unexpected surprise. Andrew Buzzeo, who normally plays Orlando had come down with Covid, so the troupe's artistic director, Norfolk's own Peter Stickney, stepped up to take his place.

And even though he announced he would be reading his lines with a script in hand, he filled the role with warmth and skill, dancing, singing and even wrestling with the best of them.

With its all-male cast, rustic stage and open-air setting, the Lord Chamberlain's Men bring us As You Like It more-or-less as it would have been when written around the year 1600.

The cathedral's Shakespeare Festival has reaffirmed its position as one of the highlights of Norwich's summer programme, and I can't wait to see what they've got in store for next year.

Review by Stuart Anderson