London Must See

Twelfth Night

At Wyndham's Theatre a stellar cast performs  “Twelfth Night,” directed by Donmar supremo Michael Grandage.

Set lightly Sur La Plage of the French Rivera, and looking swish on a stage of stressed driftwood, the production gives ample opportunity for virtuoso performances. There is excellent work from Ron Cook and Guy Henry, who use their own discrepancy in height to great comic effect as Belch and Aguecheek, whilst Victoria Hamilton's Viola pitched perfect the moments of anguish, as she struggled not to reveal her true feeling to Mark Bonnar's assured, but haunted Orsino.

Olivier award winner Derek Jacobi is, as expected, a wonderful Malvolio, who grows stronger in self-belief the deeper he is fooled. A brief moment of fear and remorse in the cell, where he has been incarcerated as a madman, is quickly rejected on release. Faced with humiliation he rises again, but his misplaced sense of new found nobility makes it almost impossible for him to speak the line 'I’ll be revenged on the whole pack of you' aloud, instead choosing to demonstrate his plans by violently ripping up the very letter that trapped him in the first place, before straightening his shirt and walking off head held high. This Malvolio displays not just pride and gullibility but the dangerous psychosis of a man completely unable to perceive of himself.

In Grandage’s production this key moment, provokes private reactions amongst the other characters. This may be authentic, it may even spin a new ambiguity over how we as an audience experience Malvolio - but it also lacks theatricality in that it encourages us to mock him further, rather than experience shame at his treatment.

Unforgiving laughter may come from a cathartic desire to banish Puritanism forever, but I’m not sure it fits with the rhythm of the packed final scene. When our collective discomfort at being complicit in a joke that backfires comes hot on the heels of the miraculous reunion of the twins, and moments before the lovers escape the stage, it painfully reminds us that love can be as exclusive as it is wonderful, which in turn sets Feste up for his final song of acceptance to the audience.

Grandage’s production is for summer days, however, a visual treat of parasols, holiday romances, and aperitifs where nothing and no one must be allowed to spoil or interfere with the course of true love. In this spirit it’s a wonderful show.