The King of Navarre and his courtiers have forsworn every kind of pleasure. But a visit from the Princess of France and her lovely entourage soon has this all-male 'academe' tearing up its own rulebook.

Shakespeare's celebration of the claims of young love is a festive parade of every weapon in the youthful playwright's comic arsenal - from excruciating cross-purposes to silly impersonations, drunkenness, bustups and pratfalls. It's also his most joyful banquet of language, groaning with puns, rhymes, bizarre syntax, grotesque coinages and parody.