William Shakespeare
Shakespeare's plays – as you like them

Best Shakespeare productions: what's your favourite As You Like It?

Michael Billington's favourite Rosalinds include Maggie Smith, Vanessa Redgrave – and Adrian Lester. Let us know the best versions you've seen

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Tom Hollander as Celia and Adrian Lester as Rosalind in As You Like It
Tom Hollander as Celia and Adrian Lester as Rosalind in As You Like It at the Arts theatre, Cambridge, in 1991. Photograph: Neil Libbert For the Observer

I've seen some golden Rosalinds in my time: Vanessa Redgrave (1961), Susan Fleetwood (1980) and Pippa Nixon (2013) all for the Royal Shakespeare Company as well as Maggie Smith at Stratford festival, in Ontario (1977), and Janet McTeer at the Royal Exchange Manchester (1986). But the production that still haunts me is Declan Donnellan's all-male Cheek by Jowl version (1991). It was both festive and disturbing and brought out, as no other production I've seen has, the play's strange erotic undercurrents.

The sight of Adrian Lester – a man playing a woman disguised as a man – being courted by Patrick Toomey's unabashedly virile Orlando left one questioning the rigid certainties of gender. By beginning the play with "all the world's a stage", and the whole cast assembled in black trousers and white shirts, Donnellan reminded us of the centrality of role-playing and Nick Ormerod's design, unlike those forest sets where you can't see the wooed for the trees, had a magical simplicity.

• What's your favourite version of As You Like It? Let us know in the comments thread below