Twelfth Night at the RSC’s Royal Shakespeare Theatre – review

Every time a jaded critic starts to think there must be a limit to the number of different ways Shakespeare can be done, along comes a production to stir things up and show off the master’s talents in a new and invigorating manner. Prasanna Puwanarajah’s take on the seasonal comedy Twelfth Night does exactly that: it’s fresh, insightful, and explores the nuances of the text in an enlightening and compelling interpretation.

Much of its success is down to the directorial decision to leaven the slapstick comic elements with a brilliantly melancholic, almost dark, opposition, in terms of both the show’s look and its content. James Cotterill has created a design that is dramatic and impressive, mostly dominated by a stunning pipe-organ backdrop that is almost imperceptibly being painted black by servants of the mourning household of the Countess Olivia. But the sombre shades are superbly offset with some beautifully realised costumes, and there’s a riot of colour, action and festivity on the apron stage, where a different world leaps into life at the touch of a foot.

That foot belongs to Olivia’s fool, Feste, who is given a central role as storyteller, foregrounded much more strongly than in many productions and, in the extremely capable mime-like hands of Michael Grady-Hall, delivered poignantly, wittily and with no small measure of pathos – a true clown, in fact.

He’s in danger of stealing the show, were it not for the performance of Samuel West as Malvolio, the pompous steward humiliated by Olivia’s household by being gulled into believing she loves him. Rarely can the yellow-stockinged, cross-gartered dupe have been played so sympathetically that his final, desperate cry for revenge is met with stunned guilty complicity by the audience. West is masterful in his pomposity, heartbreaking in his victimhood.

The silliness around Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew Aguecheek – so often played for straightforward laughs – is here lowered in temperature, making them less of a focus, and to good effect. Joplin Sibtain’s Sir Toby and Demetri Goritsas’s American Sir Andrew still mine the comedy, but room is given for their often overlooked accomplice Fabian (Daniel Millar), who becomes as important to the subplot as any of the others.

No concession is made to received pronunciation, with a veritable smorgasbord of accents delightfully on display. Freema Agyeman’s Olivia moves convincingly from grieving sister to lusty suitor, while Bally Gill brings shades of his acclaimed RSC Romeo a few years back into his portrayal of her entitled would-be husband Orsino.

But it’s a real ensemble piece, and every moment is carefully thought through and executed, from the drunken organist to the cheerful priest supping tea from an ‘I Heart Jesus’ mug. In the end, the constant layering of joke upon joke threatens to undermine the impact, as if it’s perhaps trying a little too hard, but there are so many things to like about the production, from Zoe Spurr’s precision lighting to Matt Maltese’s dreamy score, that it’s hard to resist the feeling that the RSC has a proper festive winner on its hands.