HERE is a show where the audience truly is roped in to watch some bracing summer Shakespeare.

Prompted by the line "Fools in a circle", director Cecily Boys puts audience and cast alike inside the boundary rope. After all, as Eliza Haughton-Shaw's disdainful dandy, Jaques, says: "All the world's a stage."

To avoid cramp and stiffness, take a rug, maybe a comfy cushion, better still a dinky little fold-out chair, and most importantly a rubber neck that can rotate 180 degrees to keep up with action that moves from end to end like Germany versus Italy in extra-time.

The audience may be grounded, but Cecily and her young players take off on a flight of fancy, stretching the cross-gender japes of Shakespearean comedy to the point of confusion. Then again, this is a show where the female director is called Boys.

Faced with an excess of lively girls and the usual youth theatre dearth of boys, Cecily has hit upon the solution of reversing every role's gender, although some names change and others do not, to muddy the waters still more.

Dukes become duchesses (Amy Warnock is a fierce, fiery Frederick); Celia turns into a beach bum with an Irish accent (Ben White); Charles the wrestler is a girl, not a ringside gibe, but a novel role for Sarah Mills); Touchstone, the hyperactive fool (Sarah Gibbon) and Audrey, the goat herd hand (Joe Mills) swap sexes. So too do the love-struck shepherd Silvius (Rose Alexander, bags of personality, more volume needed) and Phebe (Chris Lakin, quietly impressive in one of the few understated performances).

Olivia Sexton brings pathos to Orlando not to be found elsewhere, even keeping a straight face when dwarfed by Rosalind. Ah, Rosalind. Here, in Cecily's version, we have a boy (James Gibbon) playing a man with a girl's name, who disguises himself as a girl. Keep up, keep up!

In truth, the play loses a little in all this translation, and this excitable show ends up more fun for the cast.

As You Like It, Stagecoach Youth Theatre, York, Castle Howard Rose Gardens, tomorrow and Sunday, 2.30pm. Box office: 01653 648444