A programme note from director Maximus Marenbon raises the worrying possibility that the Oxford University Dramatic Society’s Acorn Productions might be adopting a quirky approach to As You Like It at the OFS Studio this week.

First, there is a pledge to “[bring] the audience into the world of the play” and, second, not to “neglect its dark political undertones”.

In the event, what looked likely to be dreaded audience participation amounted to no more than a line or two occasionally (very occasionally) being directed straight at one of the watching crowd, and the pall of gloom one feared might descend over Shakespeare’s happiest and most elegant play was fortunately nowhere in view.

The chief delight of As you Like It is, of course, the wise and preternaturally witty Rosalind. Here she is presented with all her charm and quicksilver repartee by Roseanna Frascona. That she is of noticeably petite build makes nonsense of the speech in which Rosalind talks of being “unusually tall for a woman” before assuming her male guise as Ganymede. Rather than cut it (like rather a lot else in this two-hour version of the play, including Rosalind’s closing address to the audience), director Marenbon has her acknowledging her inadequacy with a smile and a playful jump.

Rosalind famously has no truck with coy womanhood; having spotted Orlando as the man for her, she proves as eager for action as he. One rather wonders at the appeal of Jack Blackburn’s somewhat wimpish hero in early scenes but, like others here, his performance much improves when the action moves from the court to the Forest of Arden.

Among the trees there is admirable work, too, from Nick Pullen as the exiled Duke and from Jonnie McAloon as his jollier-than-usual pal Jaques. The comic characters are on the whole handled well, with exceptional contributions from Chris Wallwork’s no-nonsense droll northerner Touchstone, Emile Halpin – he’s a shaven-headed bloke – as his sluttish squeeze Audrey, and Rafaella Marcus (pictured, left, with Roseanna Frascona) as the lovelorn Phebe.

As You Like It continues until Saturday.