Alan David has been an actor for twenty five years. At first he worked in regional repertory theaters around England and after nine years began appearing on television. He joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1978, appearing in Trevor Nunn's celebrated production of As You Like It and more recently in the award-winning U.S. tour of Nicholas Nickleby, also directed by Trevor Nunn, which took him to Los Angeles and Broadway.

Last summer Alan completed a television series for the B.B.C. called Making Out, which is currently being shown on British television. It has proved such a success that on his return home, Alan immediately starts filming a second series.

Shakespeare's source for As You Like It is Thomas Lodge's pastoral romance, Rosalynde: or, Euphues' Golden Legacy, printed in 1590. This romance in turn is based in part on a short narrative poem of the fourteenth century, "The Tale of Gamelyn," telling of the unjust treatment of Gamelyn by his older brother, the bloody fights between them, Gamelyn's flight to the greenwood, where he becomes the leader of a happy band of outlaws, and the eventual recovery of his land after his brother has been hanged. The only reference to love comes in the last lines, where we are told that Gamelyn took a "wyf bothe goode and feyr."