Peter Viney's Blog

By William Shakespeare
Directed by Prasanna Puwanarajah
Set & costume by James Cotterill
Music composer Matt Maltese

Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-upon-Avon
Friday 10th January 2025, 19.15

CAST
Samuel West – Malvolio
Gwyneth Keyworth- Viola
Rhys Rusbatch- Sebastian
Freema Agyeman – Olivia
Bally Gill- Orsino
Joplin Sibtain – Sir Toby Belch
Demetri Goritas – Sir Andrew Aguecheek
Danielle Henry – Maria
Michael Grady-Hall- Feste
Daniel Millar- Fabian
Norman Bowman – Antonio
Emily Benjamin- Priest
Cat McKeever- Sea captain
Thom Petty- Curio
David Whitworth- Valentine
George Fletcher – 2nd officer / attendant
Michael Lyle – 1sty officer / attendant
Charlotte O’Leary- Olivia’s woman
Tom Sowiksi- Ensemble

This is just four days after the actual twelfth night. We’d booked it for December, but changed our plans and switched tickets, so while it’s a play of 2024, it’s the first of 2025 for us. Why the switch? Our younger granddaughter was performing as Sandy in Grease, and sorry RSC, we wanted to see that more.

On which is Shakespeare’s greatest comedy, there are basically two camps. The Twelfth Night camp, and the Midsummer Night’s Dream camp. We are firmly in the latter. The thing about Twelfth Night is that every time you see it, the focus shifts onto a different character. We saw Patrick Stewart dominate as a kilted Scots Malvolio at Chichester. In the Globe authentic practices version in 2012, it was Olivia played by Mark Rylance. In the National Theatre one in 2017, it was Oliver Chris’s Orsino. In Emma Rice’s Globe one the same year, it was Carly Bawden as Maria, and Marc Andolin as Sir Andrew Aguecheek. In retrospect, that one set in a Scottish golf resort is my favourite.

Michael Grady-Hall as Feste: Person of the March award

So here was a surprise, Michael Grady-Hall was the focus as Feste, one of those near impossible Shakespeare clown roles, with the addition of silent work, improvised asides and physical action. He worked through the interval too. He sings the songs, and they are interesting compositions, beautifully performed.

There is a strong costume and design theme. Early 20th century, blacks and greys. The programme cites the drawings of Edward Gorey as an inspiration.

Once we get to Olivia’s house, the set is dominated by floor to ceiling organ pipes, over a central organ console. The instant thought is the original Billy Wilder Sunset Boulevard film.

In that, Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) is a recluse (as is Olivia), beloved by her faithful butler, Max, played by Erich Von Stroheim. Butler = Steward. Max = Malvolio. Wouldn’t Von Stroheim be a fine Malvolio? Joe Gillis, a younger man turns up. Norma is enamoured, just as Olivia is with Cesario. Max plays the huge pipe organ in the house. The reference screams out.

Organ is the main instrument, with some piano, the piano is both on and off stage. The organist becomes a character, getting drunk with Sir Toby, adding organ codas to speeches, playing under some. The organ is a major contributor to comedy. I assume it’s live, not mimed to a soundtrack, as so much is related to live action. I thought it an unusual and inspired music choice. In the early years of our ELT stage shows, we used organ to fill, comment and add. Ours was a Hammond, but you can find a church organ sound on there. So why isn’t the organist credited? The trio playing in the bar in the interval are credited.

Viola appeared at the start clambering over the top of the set through that long window, coughing and spluttering from seawater. She had serious coughing competition from all sides of the theatre, but managed to cough louder than the audience coughing, which was quite a feat.

Samuel West gets the accolades as Malvolio, adopting a petty town hall official accent. A fine moustache sets it off. He slides down a pole from the top to appear cross-gartered and adds a Father Christmas hat, one of several seasonal nods.

He is rightly praised, but I thought he threw away the letter from Olivia with the C, U’s ‘n’ T’s lines.

By my life, this is my lady’s hand! These be her very c’s, her u’s, and her t’s, and thus she makes her great P’s.

He said it from a distance while the letter was propped on the organ, and swallowed the line rather than pointed it. You have to say ‘n’ not ‘and’ too. Malvolio is a major star actor role … we’ve seen Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Slinger, Adrian Edmondson, Tamsin Grieg (as Malvolia). Yet oddly, they tend to be eclipsed by another role.

While it was another fine Malvolio, the mad scene with Feste dressed as the doctor inevitably stands out as jarring, because it intrinsically is. Best advice is to race through it. Incidentally, the RSC has gone for yellow stocking souvenirs in the shop. Fun, but I wonder how many takers there will be.

Joplin Siblain is a very tall, very loud very drunk Sir Toby Belch. It’s one of the better ones. Burps and farts were well done. As the lines don’t trip easily nowadays the part often falters, but light additions and asides helped greatly. Having Sir Andrew Aguecheek (Demetri Goritas ) as an American was also a very good touch. He looked different in a brighter suit and tie than the rest. The carousing scene was raucous ending in a rendition of The Twelve Days of Christmas, a link to the play’s title which I haven’t thought of before.

On the other hand, the Sir Toby was so powerful and aggressive that it unbalances the play. Sir Toby has to have a degree of likability, plus a relationship with Maria that shows that he fancies her. She is responsive, possibly because of his title, possibly because he’s a lovable old goat There was insufficient attention on the relationship, which undermines the Maria role. Also, her clothes don’t help her mischievous role.

Also Sir Toby is so loud and aggressive that Malvolio becomes less of an overbearing bully, and more a sympathetic character. When he interrupts the loud drunken party in his nightshirt, my mind goes to the neighbour who thought midnight on Christmas Day a good time to start launching fireworks. Generally, you think the plotters have some justification in bringing Malvolio down. I didn’t feel that here. Samuel West has the ability to go for sympathy in spite of pomposity, but I thought they overdid the much maligned and put-upon Malvolio at the end. In recompense for underplaying Maria, they brought up attention on Fabian as the always unexplained member of the group watching the letter opening.

Freema Agyeman as Olivia was feisty and powerful, striding around, taking no nonsense. It took me a while to see Olivia as younger than usual, but she won me round. Olivia is a great role.

On relationships, I thought Gwyneth Keyworth was a very good Viola / Cesario, but there was not enough passion was in the scenes with Orsino. Bally Gill was a superb RSC Romeo. Somehow he doesn’t look an Orsino, probably because it’s done absolutely straight.

On Viola and Sebastian, a pale blue shirt and grey trousers are a weak way of showing twins. When Viola first dresses as a man, she puts on a jacket with purple checks,. When Sebastian appears he has the matching trousers and waistcoat. It looked promising, but then they reverted to shirt and trousers. He’s a head taller than her too. That’s where strong costume and wigs help. Rhys Rusbatch had a very light Welsh edge to his voice. At the end, I thought Viola was going that way. I would have given them both definite Welsh accents (or any other obvious accent) to tie them together and separate them from the rest. A missed opportunity.

On accents, Antonio is a strong performance, but he could turn down the Scottish accent a couple of notches. He was sometimes hard to understand. A Scottish accent is a good idea, emphasising he is a foreigner in Illyria, though Welsh (along with Viola and Sebastian) might have been a good idea.

The ensemble, missing from most productions, works. When Viola appears as Cesario at Orsino’s court first, she is standing in a line with the tall formally dressed servants, and she is petite and they are very tall. The physical visuals have been considered throughout, always important with Sir Toby and Sir Andrew, but so often ignored.

There was a lack of playfulness in the romances, comedy, yes, playfulness, no. There is a downbeat ending, with a melancholy solo song well-sung by Feste and no final dance. It doesn’t feel like a comedy, as they play the ending uncut (I think) and for me, too long.

It’s different. The photos show it is dark. Dark costumes, dark sets. Maybe that befits a Jannuary ply, but it doesn’t promote a comedy feeling. It’s original, and has several good new line readings / interpretations. Why has no one thought of the reading aloud of our souls / assholes possibility before? There is line freedom to add comment, and well and they do. For our souls / assholes the added comment “it’s American’ helped.

Rating is difficult. I thought a strong four stars at first. Karen thought the deliberate dark side failed to do the play justice, and while admiring acting and stagecraft, disliked the interpretation, and thought they didn’t get the Sir Toby / Maria / Malvolio balance at all. It was a depressing ending swamping the joy of the twins finding each other. Karen is a bare 3 star. After much discussion (it is a three hour drive home), I think she’s right.

Overall ***

WHAT THE CRITICS SAID

4 star
Mark Lawson, The Guardian ****
Domenic Cavendish, The Telegraph ****
Michael Davies, What’s On Stage ****
Graham Wyles, Stage Talk ****

three star
Simon Tavener, Reviews Hub *** 1/2
Gary Naylor, The Arts Desk, ***

LINKS ON THIS BLOG

TWELFTH NIGHT

• 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
• Twelfth Night, RSC 2024-2025
• Play On! (based on Twelfth Night), Salisbury 2024

SAMUEL WEST
Present Laughter, by Noël Coward, Bath 2016 (Gary Essendine)
Ivanov, by Chekhov, Chichester 2015 (Ivanov)
The Seagull, by Chekhov, Chichester 2015 (Trigorin)
Darkest Hour (film)

BALLY GILL
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, RSC 2024 (Oberon / Theseus)
Romeo & Juliet, RSC 2018 (Romeo)
Macbeth, RSC 2018 (Ross)
Coriolanus, RSC 2017
Vice Versa, RSC 2017
Salome, RSC 2017
Dinner With Saddam, Menier 2015

MICHAEL GRADY-HALL
Venice Preserved by Thomas Otway, RSC 2019
The Shoemaker’s Wife, RSC 2015
All’s Well That Ends Well, RSC, 2013
As You Like It, RSC, 2013
Hamlet, RSC 2013
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, RSC 2011
The City Madam, RSC 2011
Cardenio, RSC 2011

GWYNETH KEYWORTH
As You Like It, Globe 2015 (Phoebe)

DANIELLE HENRY
The Hypocrite, RSC 2017