Love's Labour's Lost: Royal Shakespeare Company, The Courtyard Theatre, Stratford

9:46am Thursday 9th October 2008

Having introduced an unexpected, if welcome, element of comedy into his performance as Hamlet, David Tennant now reverses the process in his exceptionally hard-working season at Stratford by pointing up the darker, more contemplative, side to one of Shakespeare's most celebrated comic creations. That his portrayal of the garrulous Berowne in Love's Labour's Lost is more serious than is usually the case can be instantly inferred from his use of his native Scottish accent. Scottish means serious — just think of our Chancellor and a Prime Minister who but for a couple of missing 'e's . . .

Happily, Scottish also means easy on the ear, as is heard in the lilting beauty of many of the speeches delivered by Tennant with impeccable judgment, not least over the delightfully pointed facial expressions and gestures that accompany some of them. The best, most heartfelt, delivery comes in Berowne's famous defence of a love that he and his three pals have vowed to forswear for three years — until a party of beautiful women turn up at the Court of Navarre and they swiftly change their minds: "And when Love speaks the voice of all the gods/Make heaven drowsy with the harmony."

Love's Labour's Lost is famously Shakespeare's filthiest, if not funniest, comedy, and one not blessed with much in the way of a plot (Will had no one to pinch it from). Director Gregory Doran strikes an appropriately lubricious tone early on when the delicious dairymaid Jaquenetta (Riann Steele) is seen rhythmically pumping the plunging rod of her butter churn to the mounting arousal of her two admirers. You can almost see the steam coming from the ears of the preposterous, preening Spaniard Armado (a superb Joe Dixon) and the chirpy clown, Costard (Ricky Champ).

The plot shortage is partly compensated for by our being given so much to look at. This includes the huge tree, streams of multi-coloured plastic 'leaves' pendant, that dominates designer Francis O'Connor's set, many gorgeous period costumes — especially those worn by the visiting Princess of France (Mariah Gale) and her retinue of lovely attendants — and vigorous displays of stick dancing.

To beguile the ear, meanwhile, is Paul Englishby's plangent music and — most important of all — the great torrents of words that pour in unimaginable richness from so many of the characters. Occasionally, one feels at one with Constable Dull (Ewen Cummins), puffing contentedly on his pipe as these fireworks explode around him. "Thou hast spoken no word all this while," says the pedant schoolmaster Holofernes (Oliver Ford Davies), to which the officer replies: "Nor understood none neither, sir."

Love's Labour's Lost is at the Courtyard Theatre, Stratford, until November 15. Box office: tel 0844 8001110 (www.rsc.org.uk)

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