So Eleven’s hour is over now; the clock is striking Twelve’s. The warm and welcoming atmosphere of the RSC in Stratford-upon-Avon is the perfect environment to celebrate Twelfth Night, a time for the last vestiges of the festivities to ebb away and a new year to bed itself in, as the latest iteration of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night plays to an enthusiastic and merry crowd.
It’s a curious and wonderous play. As with many of the Bard’s comedies, it’s exceptionally funny and playful but laced with darkness. Love’s Labour’s Lost ends with the party over, tragedy tinting the tale of romantic hilarity; A Midsummer Night’s Dream shows how manipulative love can be; yet Twelfth Night might be the grimmest of all. That’s largely due to Malvolio, played here by Samuel West (All Creatures Great and Small, as well as Morbius for Big Finish and Cyrian in Dimensions in Time), who is a figure of scorn for much of the play, resulting in the one of the most hilarious scenes in Shakespeare’s oeuvre, but who is left in an overwhelmingly dark place.
This take on Twelfth Night highlights that, though perhaps largely because West is so darn good. He is exceptional, as an actor in general and certainly as Malvolio. His presence is enormous, his charm magnetising. The most notable scene in the story, focusing on his downfall, is presented here in the most immaculate and hilarious way. It doesn’t evoke a ripple of laughter from the audience, but a tidal wave. West plays it beautifully, but the set design expounds on it, and every moment only gets funnier. It’s an astonishing feeling — you leave the theatre marvelling that a script written some 400 years ago still elicits such a reaction, still remains so engaging, still gives you chills.
Yes, this production is exceptional. All aspects of it are wonderful. This is a very special experience.
And it is a whole experience. The audience is even entertained in the interval, thanks to Feste (Michael Grady-Hall), who starts juggling in the corner then, though mute, welcomes visitors in as players. Grady-Hall is fantastic throughout: a bumbling buffoon who knows the value of “bumbling buffoons”, the oft-quoted witty fool for whom the fourth wall never existed in the first place. This aura permeates the rest of the cast. The RSC’s stage means they’re parading between the rows of audience members, running around and popping up where you don’t expect them. A small section in which Orsino (Bally Gill) orders his men to wheel in a piano to woo his love is particularly well done.
Director, Prasanna Puwanarajah, draws so much humour from almost every instance — managing to really use the ingenuity of James Cotterill’s set design, notably the grand, looming organ that becomes a character in itself — but affords each character their moment of melancholy. Joplin Sibtain (The Waters of Mars) is a wonderful Sir Toby Belch, but you do grow to resent him, even if he’s channelling Feste’s joviality, due to his treatment of Malvolio. Viola isn’t given much time to come to terms with the apparent death of her brother at the opening of the play, but Gwyneth Keyworth (Big Finish’s Torchwood) nonetheless charms you and reveals underlying insecurities. And Freema Agyeman (Tenth Doctor companion, Martha Jones) is a wonderfully contradictory Olivia: it’s not a role typically afforded much humour as she’s not as outrageous as those around her, yet Freema is so fantastic that she still elicits a huge number of laughs. Her body language and facial expressions, the choices she’s made, are so clever. A hugely underrated actress.
In fact, she and Samuel West steal the show. That’s a considerable achievement considering the calibre of this production. The cast and crew capture a particular magic that combines the joyousness and melancholy of the festivities, of the year, of twelfth night and Twelfth Night.
And that is just the word for this production: joyous. Absolutely joyous.
Twelfth Night runs until 18th January 2025.
