AS THE debut production of the newly reborn theatre company Shared Experience, in a co-production with Theatre by the Lake, Kate Saxon’s modern dress As You Like It aspires to be as amusing as it is thought-provoking, writes NICK SMURTHWAITE.

“When I read As You Like It, the parallels to the political situation we’re in now, with all its divisions and rivalries, rang out loud and clear to me,” says Kate. “I’ve set our production in the present time and there has been a political coup. The usurped leader has fled to the Forest of Arden, which is a fantastical place of equality, empathy and hope.”

Kate explains that her version isn’t so much a reinvention of Shakespeare as a way of seeing the story afresh and finding out how it speaks to us in 2017.

“It’s all there in the text,” she says. “Shakespeare wrote in a universal way about our loves and struggles and fears. He always manages to find the place where our emotions and thoughts are carried. In order for us to access the plays today they have to reflect the world we’re in.”

Unlike like many of us, Kate loved studying Shakespeare at school, but then she did grow up in Stratford upon Avon where it was almost compulsory to honour the Bard.

“My family weren’t into theatre so I used to take myself off to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre (RSC), aged 14, to see actors like Kenneth Branagh and Alan Rickman. I even booked a ticket to see the eight-hour Nicholas Nickleby on Boxing Day which my parents thought was a bit weird.”

Kate also auditioned to perform in a couple of plays - The Dillon and Mary, After the Queen - when the RSC called for local people to join the cast. “I performed in those productions for two years which was a brilliant way to get out of school!” she adds.

Despite a distinguished career as a director, with more than 40 productions to her credit, Kate has done surprisingly little Shakespeare. “The last Shakespeare I did was Romeo and Juliet for Ludlow Festival and the Northcott Theatre in Exeter. I’d happily do a lot more. I’d love to direct A Winter’s Tale, which is my favourite Shakespeare, and I’d like to have another go at Measure for Measure, which I directed some years ago with a cast of ex-prisoners.”

She believes his plays are meant to be seen and heard in performance, not just read.

Kate describes herself as “a bit of a chameleon” in terms of her directing credits, since she is happy to go from directing a new play in New York to directing voice work and performance capture for video games to directing an episode of EastEnders.

What they all have in common, she insists, is “a bloody good story.”

Surely directing EastEnders requires completely different skills to directing a Shakespearean classic?

“Well it’s a much faster turn-around in TV with zero rehearsal time and lots of quick decisions made under pressure. But it all comes down to the same thing: clear, truthful storytelling that exposes humanity, whether it’s raw and muddy or beautiful and poetic. Audiences see through bluff and bluster on TV the same as they do on stage.”

As You Like It runs at Keswick's Theatre by the Lake until November 4.

Box office 017687-74411.