Shakespeare: The Biography by Peter Ackroyd Chapter 67

Well Bandied Both, a Set of Wit Well Played

Of the two comedies written at this time, Much Ado About Nothing and As You Like It, the evidence suggests that Much Ado About Nothing was written first.  It may have been performed at the Curtain,, with Will Kempe playing the immortal role of Dogberry, before the Lord Chamberlain’s Men moved to the Globe.  Shakespeare’s plays were being launched and performed even as the Globe was being constructed.  Much Ado About Nothing is to this day one of Shakespeare’s most popular plays because of the wit-combats of Beatrice and Benedick.  Theirs is a wit of high order, anticipating Congreve and Wilde, shadowed by the farcical humour of Dogberry and his cohorts.

The entire play, in fact, provides a significant insight into the range and nature of Elizabethan comedy. Consisting of fast repartee, complicated wordplay, extravagant conceits, endless sexual innuendo and what can only be described as a form of reckless melancholy.  The Elizabethan age seems always to be on the edge of despair or dissolution, with the prospect of everything crashing down in flames; hence all the bravura and defiance of its major players.

As You Like It was certainly performed at the Globe, not the Curtain; Jacques’s speech “All the world’s a stage,” makes reference to the motto of the Globe.  Perhaps, more importantly, the character of Touchstone was played by a relatively new recruit the Lord Chamberlain’s Men.  The Part was written for Robert Armin, comedians and musician, who was Will Kempe’s replacement.    It has been suggested that Kempe’s brand of foolery was seen as somewhat old-fashioned in the changed circumstances of the Globe, or he may not have been very impressed with the parts made for him.  From various veiled reference, it seems Shakespeare did not instinctively appreciate the type of humour in which Kempe himself was the star performer.  Kempe was too unpredictable and insisted on making his personality central to his role.  In turn, Kempe may not have recognised the subtleties of Shakespeare’s art, having been used to an earlier generation of the theatre where writers were merely hired hacks.

Whatever the reasons for Kempe’s departure, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men replaced him with a new kind of comic player.  Armin had begun the world as an apprentice to a goldsmith in Lombard, but very quickly earned some kind of reputation as a dramatist and ballad writer.  Even if his principal career was as a comic actor, he never gave up his writing.  He has even been described one theatrical historian as an “intellectual”.  Certainly, he knew Latin and Italian.  He became a member of Lord Chamberlain’s Men and must have gained a reputation as a comic player and natural wit.

It is worth remarking that Shakespeare started writing parts for “fools” only after Armin had joined the company.  Since Armin was also known for his singing voice and Shakespeare wrote songs for him.

Armin had studied what were known as “natural fools” and with his instinctive skills in mimicry he had learned to imitate them, he also brought a self-consciousness or interiority to the role of clown that Kempe himself never provided.  He studied each role with care and differentiated one from another.

Armin first appears as Touchstone in As You Like It, and was proclaimed a “Nature’s natural”.  He did not wear the conventional russet outfit of the clown but instead the fool’s costume that included a long coat of woven green and yellow, and eared hood and a baton.  Shakespeare invented Touchstone for Armin, without relying upon his multifarious sources.  In the third act, he sings snatches of a song before he runs off the stage with Audrey.  He probably doubled as Amiens with more lyrical ballads from the repertoire.

Given the enclosure riots of the period, and the general fear of those who lived in forests as “outlaws” and robbers”.  It would have been relatively easy to turn As You Like It into a satirical portrait of greed and corruption but instead wrote a charming pastoral satire with the additional figures of Jacques and Touchstone to lend comic depth to the proceedings.  He was a literate man who preferred romance to reality.  The forest prompts the characters, not into violence, but into poetry and song.  It is a haven for the generosity of spirit and for melancholy musing, a place where love is celebrated and confirmed.  The spell of enchantment is upon everything.