Review: Love's Labour's Lost
[Orange Tree on the Hill || July 31st to August 22nd 2026 || 2h 40m]
With the Orange Tree Theatre undergoing a major refurbishment, their summer programme has decamped to the beautiful grounds of Thomas’s College, where artistic director Tom Littler is staging two Shakespeare plays in repertory: Love’s Labour’s Lost and Much Ado About Nothing. As with his excellent 2024 production of Twelfth Night, the dramas have been temporally relocated to the 1940s so that the shadow of war hangs over them, though in the glare of the blazing sun (my poor Drumstick Lolly looking arms are testament to that…) it’s difficult to imagine these characters being disturbed by anything other than mild frivolity. Frivolity has its charms, however, and in such a glorious setting, it’s hard not to get swept up in the silliness and whimsy of it all.
Love’s Labour’s Lost is a peculiar beast of a play. In many ways it’s one of Shakespeare’s densest comedies, relying very heavily on complicated and convoluted wordplay - even moreso than usual - and allusions to Greek mythology to generate humour and propel the various narrative misdirections forward. Much of what Shakespeare tackles here feels like a rehearsal for ideas that he would tighten and hone in later, better works. Both metadrama and the amorphous border between dreams and reality form the core of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, while mistaken identities are intrinsic to Twelfth Night and Much Ado About Nothing. The hypocrisies of those who impose exacting and punishing standards on themselves and others, particularly in relation to sex, are likewise explored in Measure for Measure, yet unlike in all of those works, each of which has a broad universality to it, Love’s Labour’s Lost is specific in both its satire and its portrayal of a particular strand of French nobility.
As such, this is a lesser-read and lesser-performed play though interestingly enough, the most recent major production, at the RSC in 2014, was performed in repertory with… Much Ado About Nothing. That’s not to suggest that Love’s Labour’s Lost is merely a work-in-progress or one that cannot stand on its own merits, of course. Shakespeare regularly returned to the same themes and ideas across his entire ouevre, and there’s a lot of depth to this text that Littler does fine work adapting and making accessible without sacrificing its rigour or poetry. Conscious of both the limitations and opportunities afforded by the makeshift outdoor space, Littler leans into the text’s more farcical elements, opening the space up so that characters disappear and reappear behind, and sometimes in, trees, or are observed descending on the scene from some distance, ready to further complicate whatever shenanigans are currently unfolding.
There’s something amdram about some of the performances, though I (mostly) mean that lovingly. Everyone is committed to the exaggerated comedy and overwrought romance, and Littler makes the most of the cast’s willingness to embrace the inherent silliness of the plot. The miscommunications and misconceptions that comprise the narrative’s early stages are humorous enough and Littler is adept at scaffolding the comedy so that each scene crescendoes with a quote-unquote “Big Laugh”, while the final scene, which offers a rather more dour and unconventional ending than one might expect from a Shakespeare comedy, has real emotional weight. It’s a little too long - that Shakespeare bloke needs an editor - and the pacing is a little wobbly but, again, it’s directed with such an easy air that it's always a joy to watch.
This is pleasant. It’s staged in a beautiful location and the Orange Tree has gone the extra mile to make the experience feel very welcoming and new. Love’s Labour’s Lost was never going to be the easiest play to stage, particularly given the constraints of having to do it in an unfamiliar place, but it works, and the cast and crew give it their all. It will be interesting to see if the Orange Tree continues to experiment with outdoor theatre even once the refurb is finished but regardless, this is a cute and thoroughly enjoyable way to spend a few hours in what’s left of the summer and it ticks off a Shakespeare I've never seen before.
Tickets for Love’s Labour’s Lost are available here.