Express & Star

Twelfth Night, Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford - review

This is Shakespeare for people who think they don't like Shakespeare. If you only go the theatre once in the next three months, make sure it's for this. It is utterly enchanting.

Published
Twelfth Night. Pic: Manuel Harlan

Adrian Edmondson, still best remembered for the madcap slapstick of Bottom and The Young Ones, leads an excellent company in the Bard's most musical play.

The settings are gorgeous, a fusion of early Imperial Victorian with Indian sitar music, silk cushions and hookah pipes. Director Christopher Luscombe makes fine use of Stratford's revolving stage; one moment we're in the boudoir, the next in Illyria railway station.

See a trailer for the show here:

Edmondson plays the puritan old steward Malvolio. It is a glorious role, full of hilarity, pomposity and pathos, and he does it full justice, throwing in a song-and-dance act.

Whether he's the star of the show is a matter of opinion. Dinita Gohil, as Viola disguised as Orsino's manservant Cesario, is terrific. You can understand why any man - or woman - would fall for him/her.

She tempts Orsino into what he must imagine to be a long gay kiss and then works her magic on the grieving Olivia, played by the 2010 Strictly Come Dancing winner Kara Tointon, who responds to his/her charms like a rose coming into bloom. It is wonderful, magical, gender-bending, elegant stuff. And that's before you even add in the wonderful comedy routines by John Hodgkinson and Michael Cochraine, perfectly paired as Sir Toby Belch (with a fart machine in his trousers) and Sir Andrew Aguecheek.

Twelfth Night is at Stratford until February 24 next year.

The production will be live screened at selected cinemas on Valentine's Day, February 14.