Peter Viney's Blog

A new jazz musical, based on Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.
Presented by Talawa, the UK Black theatre company

A Wiltshire Creative production

Conceived by Sheldon Epps
Book by Cheryl L.West.

Directed by Michael Buffong
Music supervisor and arranger Liam Godwin
Set and costume by Ultz
Choreography by Kenrick sandy

Salisbury Playhouse
Thursday 24th October 2024, 14.30

CAST
Tsemaye Bob-Wgbe – Viola / Vyman
First act only. Understudy in Act 2 Jarneia Richard Noel
Kori ‘Koko’Hedgemon – Lady Liv
Earl Gregory- The Duke
Llewllyn Jamal- Jester UNDERSTUDY Andre Coulson
Cameron Bernard-Jones -Rev
Lifford Shillingford- Sweets
Tanya Edwards – Miss Mary
Gleanne Purcell-Browne- CeeCee
+
ensemble
Jarneia Richard Noel + dance captain
Amberr Cayasso
Natalia Brown
Freya Karlettis
Andre Coulson see above. Understudy Jester
Alex Okoampa
Dylan Blake-Colbet
Tanaka Bingwa

Let’s do the understudies first. We hadn’t seen the sign that the understudy, Andre Coulson, was on for Jester until the interval. We would never have known he was the understudy.

Then came the interval. We were both commenting on how brilliant Tsemaye Bob-Wgbe was in the lead role of ‘Viola’ in singing lead, dancing, acting, great interactive expressions when being sung to. ‘This is a long interval,’ I said, ‘It must be 30 minutes.’ Then on came the stage manager to announce that she had been taken ill in the interval and that there would be a further delay while Jarneia Richard Noel from the ensemble was being prepared for the role in Act Two. She had to put her hair up (as Viola was pretending to be male), be wired for a mic and Karen noted the trousers hems had been roughly stitched up. The end was a 40 minute interval. Again, she was superb and as expected got applause on entry and major applause at the end when the cast pushed her forward at the curtain call. We have often seen understudies, but this might be the first changed at half time. We hoped the illness wasn’t contagious (two of the cast out?) as the end of Act One had Viola and Lady Liv kissing.

Part of the delay may have been the ensemble agreeing positions in dances. After all they’d been down from eight to seven in Act One, and now would be down from seven to six in Act Two. Often they were in smaller groups. They covered it so you would never have noticed EXCEPT at the start of Act two five coloured spots hit the stage in circles, and only four were occupied.

First, Twelfth Night. This is NOT a version. It takes broad plot and some characters. Only twice do Shakespeare’s lines appear. One is Some have greatness thrust upon them, but that’s from the Duke here, not Malvolio, and done with a knowing grin. Then obviously, If music be the food of love … (all) Play on!

It’s set in The Cotton Club in Harlem in the 1940s. All the music was written by or was performed by Duke Ellington. That’s my preferred musical, where the songs comment emotionally on the story, but none of them actually narrate the story. There’s a five piece band … piano, drums, double bass, reeds, trumpet. They are first class.

Viola arrives left. Dressed as Vyman right. Tsemaye Bob-Wgbe

I’ll do the parallels to save you the trouble of trying to work them out on the night. Viola (Tsemaye Bob-Wgbe) is now a would be songwriter who has come to New York wanting to pitch her songs to The Duke (Earl Gregory).

The Duke is the band leader and has the moustache, so is Duke Ellington (replacing Duke Orlando). Viola arrives and meets her uncle, Jester (Andre Coulson today), who works at the club and will try to get her an introduction.

Jester (though the normal one, not today) and Cee-Cee

Jester is partly Feste, but not quite. He’s a cool womaniser, so may have touches of Sir Toby Belch, but Toby was Olivia’s uncle, not Viola’s. He is purusing Cee Cee (Gleanne Purcell-Browne), the hat check girl, but others are interested. Cee-Cee takes part in several ensemble dance routines too.

Jester points out that no one will take a woman seriously in the music business (it is the 1940s), so she decides to dress as a man. In Twelfth Night this is where she becomes Cesario, but here Viola is asked her name (dressed as a man) and starts Vi… realises and adds ‘man’ as in ‘hey, man.’ ‘Vi, man.’ So they think her name is Vyman.

The star of the club is a histrionic diva, Lady Liv (Kori ‘Koko’Hedgemon), who Duke is in love with, so she takes over from Olivia from Twelfth Night. She is a tremendously powerful singer.

Left: Lady Liv. Right: Sweets and Miss Mary

Lady Liv has two in her household. Miss Mary (Tanya Edwards ) is her dresser, so a straight Maria. Sweets (Lifford Shillingford) is enamoured of Maria, and works for Lady Liv. The three who work together as tricksters are Jester, Miss Mary and Sweets. So in some ways Sweets replaces Sir Toby Belch – but don’t try and take that far.

Rev: before and after ‘the trick’

Then there’s Rev (Cameron Bernard Jones). He is smart, uptight, bossy and runs the club and rehearses the dancers. This is the Malvolio role. The three conspire to trick him into dressing up to impress Lady Liv, but it’s vocal persuasion, not a fake letter.

That’s as far as it goes. there is no twin brother, Sebastian. There is no Sir Andrew Aguecheek (so sadly, no duel). Otherwise we have the basics … Vyman is Duke’s messenger to Lady Liv. Lady Liv takes as fancy to Vyman instead. Rev is tricked into making a fool of himself.

As you may have guessed the ending pairings won’t match up with no Sebastian. Let’s just say Rev gets the happy ending Malvolio never did.

You have singers and dancers at the highest level. Some Duke Ellington compositions reflect on the story better than others. The sound quality is fabulous, every instrument and voice is clear.

I wish I’d spent an hour or two listening to a CD of Ellington’s best before. It would have enhanced it. Do Nothing Tlll You Hear From Me was the song I know best (Mose Allison version) and it shone. Rocks In my Bed (The Duke and Sweets) was great R&B performance, Beginning To See The Light was a major feature as was It Don’t Mean A Thing was another well-known one.

(Be My) Solitude is an ensemble piece ending Act One, sung in turn by Vyman, Lady Liv, The Duke and Rev, setting up the lovelorn quartet for Act Two.

I was delighted to see a full page of the programme dedicated to listing the music, the composers and the timing. Every theatre programme should do this. It is rare. Well done.

I can’t judge whether the length was right, but the 40 minute interval meant too long in the seats for us. If we’d known it was going to be 40 minutes we’d have stood, but I guess they knew no better than we did how long it would take to switch. We both thought the play had a run of similar duets and it could have benefitted from cutting just one or two numbers. Ell of a lot of Ellington.

We discussed the energy and enthusiasm on the way home. Is it presumptuous to say an all-black theatre company may find it a little odd playing to an audience entirely composed of older white folks? There’s a hint of the issue earlier in the play text when they discuss being a ‘negro’ performing at The Cotton Club. It was a matinee. We didn’t see any people of colour in the audience. The audience loved it, and I’d guess older white folks are more likely to have prized Duke Ellington collections at home than younger black folks. Still, they have done Coventry and Liverpool, and have Birmingham, Bristol and Hammersmith (a full month) to come. I think there will be a wider audience profile then. I’m delighted that Salisbury put it on, and also for two weeks. However, Wiltshire is probably the palest place they’re going to play and the matinee could have had more people there.

Overall: ****

WHAT THE CRITICS SAID

Yet again, the critics don’t shift their bottoms to warm the seats very far from London.

Five stars
Salisbury Blog online *****
Amarjeet Singh, What’s On Stage ***** (Coventry)
Jessica Clixby, What’s On Live ***** (Coventry)

Four Stars
West End Best friend ****

Three stars
East Midlands Theatre *** (Coventry)

TWELFTH NIGHT ON THIS BLOG
Twelfth Night RSC 2012
Twelfth Night – Apollo 2012  Mark Rylance (Olivia), Stephen Fry (Malvolio)
Twelfth Night- ETT 2014, Brighton Theatre Royal
Twelfth Night, National Theatre, 2017
Twelfth Night, Watermill, Newbury 2017
Twelfth Night, The Globe, 2017
Twelfth Night, RSC 2017  
Twelfth Night, Young Vic, 2018
Twelfth Night, Globe 2021