RSC's Twelfth Night - Barbican ★★★★

A Shakespeare comedy anchored in grief and unrequited love, Twelfth Night is a festive fusion of humour and melancholy. Twins Viola and Sebastian get washed up in Illyria after a shipwreck, both believing the other dead. Mournful and solitary, Viola takes on a masculine shape and becomes ‘Cesario’ to find work at Duke Orsino’s house, where farcical chaos ensues. Countess Olivia has been enduring persistent advances from Orsino and, grieving her brother, is uninterested in his melodrama. Olivia instead falls for Cesario; meanwhile, Cesario falls in love with Orsino. Later, Viola’s brother Sebastian is saved by hardcore sailor Antonio and mistaken for Cesario by Olivia. They wed, Olivia none the wiser. Beneath the cross-dressing and manipulated marriage, another plot unravels in the household, where the real story happens. Olivia’s killjoy butler Malvolio becomes the victim of several pranks orchestrated by Sir Toby Belch, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, Maria and Feste the clown, where one drunken joke is taken too far.

Twelfth Night is such a complex tale that the pre-interval section takes time, care and attention to set you up properly for the chaos to come. But do not be put off by its two-and-a-half-hour run time! Director Prasanna Puwanarajah navigates the naturally slow pace with ease, proven by the cast’s stellar job at finding comedy and creating entertainment in even the most chewy parts of Shakespeare’s script. For example, even in the most burdensome monologues that Countess Olivia (Freema Agyeman) must deliver, she commands the stage easily and performs with comical sass and cheeky innuendo that keeps you hooked. Also, Gwyneth Keyworth is charged with the mammoth task of playing Viola/Cesario and takes it in her stride. She is naturally hilarious and able to make you laugh with her perplexed expression alone. Also, interestingly, Puwanarajah has placed Feste (Michael Grady-Hall) in the centre of the action, even though he’s written as a peripheral character who speaks to the lower circles. Grady-Hall keeps the pace up, quickly sifting through his most strenuous lines, unearthing nuggets of clever humour. And by making a clown the driving force for a story about grief, Puwanarajah proves the need for humour in difficult times, which is relevant now, and adds depth to Feste the fool.

Grady-Hall steals the show. Doubling as a warm-up act, he plays classic interactive games and gets everybody laughing before inviting you into the world of histrionic characters, thorny duologues, and Jacobean pranking. Much of Grady-Hall’s performance is quintessentially clownish, and it takes true understanding of comedy to confidently walk the line between gloom and hilarity the way he does. George Dennis’ sound design also helps tell the comical story brilliantly. Grady-Hall acts with the sound operator; both have perfect timing. Clownish sound effects punctuate Grady-Hall’s comedy, and both work together with unwavering dedication to the craft.

When butler Malvolio is humiliated for the last time, the show takes a phenomenal turn away from the slapstick. Sir Toby Belch throws a party, which Malvolio disrupts in his grinching manner. To prevent a brutish brawl, Maria plots a way to prank Malvolio. She mischievously forges a letter from Countess Olivia declaring her love for Malvolio, asking him to meet her in yellow stockings only. Upon his comical arrival and advances on Olivia, Maria accuses him of being mad, and he gets shamefully locked in the cellar. Samuel West as Malvolio has an infectious charm and likeability, despite the character’s snobbish nature. His initial charm aids his comeuppance in his final lines; you end up feeling incredibly guilty for laughing. Feste flies in, donned in yellow stockings to make light of the prank, but by Malvolio’s cutting reaction, the damage has been done. West conveys Malvolio’s heartbreak and shame so well it will resonate with you for days. It’s here that you realise you are also swept up in the comedy of it all, and what you’ve been laughing at is actually very cruel. The bittersweet message of Twelfth Night lands here. If you are going to see this production, watch it for this moment, for Samuel West is astounding.

To complete a perfect balance of darkness to light, Matt Maltese’s composition is remarkable too. Feste has several songs throughout the show, which are notoriously hard to direct and compose due to their ambiguous nature and the hundreds of ways to interpret them. The iconic closing song, ‘The rain it raineth every day’, could easily be a knee-slapping Shakespearean dance, but instead, Feste stands alone and sings. Grady-Hall delivers Maltese’s heavy-hearted composition with aplomb and conveys real feelings of guilt and sorrow – adding another, saddening layer to this clown. Michael Grady-Hall and Matt Maltese end this comedy with resonating poignancy.

The Royal Shakespeare Company transferred this production from its original thrust stage in Stratford-upon-Avon to the enormous end-on stage in the Barbican. Unfortunately, even after its relocation, it is still clearly designed with a smaller stage in mind. Zoe Spurr and Bethany Gupwell’s lighting design is quite unevocative on such a large stage and does not try to hide its big open spaces. Most of the time, the lighting state is a general wash with occasional profiles on either end of this gloomy rectangle. For example, at high tension when Malvolio is held prisoner in the cellar, his panic cannot resonate to its utmost potential because the stage looks enormous around him. It could be confused for a studio theatre, with a black floor and black drapes. James Cotterill’s set design has some impressive elements, like a huge organ with slapstick doors beneath it, and the first set was very compelling. A big raised white box with a ladder to enter and exit becomes the shipwreck that Viola clambers out of. This contemporary visual is exactly what a modern Shakespeare benefits from, so it’s disappointing to only visit it once. The box is clinical, confined and captivating; could this not also be the cellar in which Malvolio is tortured?

Twelfth Night by the RSC in the Barbican is witty, thoughtful, and poignant at the best of times. It is guaranteed to make you laugh. Whether you’re a lifelong lover of the play, or you don’t know the story at all, the physical comedy is so hilarious it will keep you engaged. The play tastefully teases comedy out of the darkness. The only issue in this production is with the way it’s been adapted for a bigger end-on stage. Some design elements just hinder the storytelling in the most intimate moments. This being said, it has fully realised the importance of humour, and it couldn’t have come at a better time. Whether you’re a bit of a Grinch or welcoming the festive spirit, Twelfth Night will fulfil your seasonal and theatrical desires.