News | Laura Marling composes music for Shakespeare play

For Folk's Sake Laura Marling guitar field

FFS’s favourite songstress Laura Marling has composed the music for a new production of Shakespeare’s As You Like It, which opened on Wednesday in Stratford-upon-Avon.

“I was basically given a license to rip off Shakespeare,” Laura joked. Adding that she got “real fear” when the Royal Shakespeare Company approached her but was too intrigued to turn the opportunity down. “I have no knowledge of theatre, and I’d say not a huge knowledge of Shakespeare either. I didn’t finish school so I have always been daunted by the idea of Shakespeare,” she told Radio 4.

The music she wrote for the play, which is one of Shakespeare’s famous comedies, was a departure for Laura, who said she had to adapt her usual style: “I’m not really known for my lightheartedness. My natural inclination more melancholic.”

The ever-busy Marling also releases her fourth album, ‘Once I was An Eagle’, on May 27th.

By Adam Lowe