Peter Viney's Blog

Twelfth Night
By William Shakespeare

publicity photo: Kara Tointon as Olivia, Ade Edmondson as Malvolio

Directed by Christopher Luscombe
Designed by Simon Higlett
Music Nigel Hess

Royal Shakespeare Company
Royal Shakespeare Theatre
Stratford-upon-Avon, Friday 10th November 2017 19.30

CAST
Esh Alladi – Sebastian
Nicholas Bishop – Orsino
Tom Byrne – Valentine
Sally Cheng – Kitchen maid
Michael Cochrane – Sir Andrew Aguecheek
Adrian Edmondson – Malvolio
James Cant – Police inspector / Manservant / Footman
Dinita Gohil- Viola
John Hodgkinson – Sir Toby Belch
Beruce Khan – Feste
Verity Kirk – parlour maid
Luke Latchman – Curio
Vivien Parry – Maria
Joseph Brown – Footman / Police Officer / Station porter
Giles Taylor- Antonio
Kara Tointon- Olivia
Sarah Twomey – Fabia
Jamie Tyler – sea captain / police officer / station master

2017, the year of Twelfth Nights, started with The National Theatre production, then The Watermill Theatre did it and toured it, and The Globe did a fabulous modern version, directed by Emma Rice, which I saw twice. This was the most eagerly awaited of the lot following Christopher Luscombe’s magnificent Love’s Labours Lost / Love’s Labour’s Won  (aka Much Ado About Nothing) pairing at the RSC in 2014, which was reprised in Chichester in 2016. The big name is Adrian Edmondson as Malvolio here, with Kara Tointon as Olivia. Both are best known for TV roles. The Young Ones, The Comic Strip and Bottom for Adrian Edmondson who we saw on stage in Neville’s Island and in Bottom in a huge hall. It was way better live than the version on TV. More recently he played totally straight in War and Peace, and as the father in the 2017 film Interlude in Prague along with Aneurin Barnard as Mozart (Dunkirk). 

For regular theatre goers, the big name here would be John Hodgkinson as Sir Toby Belch, who was not only in Luscombe’s Love’s Labours Lost / Love’s Labour’s Won  but in Martin McDonagh’s Hangmen and Jez Butterworth’s The Ferryman, arguably the best two modern plays of the last few years. A star Sir Toby is unusual casting in recent years, though in the past Sir Toby Belch was the name role in the play rather than Malvolio. In virtually every production I’ve seen, Sir Andrew Aguecheek is the better role … better lines, better action.

After we have sat waiting for the start, admiring Orsino’s house with its pre-Raphaelite paintings, the beginning of the play is extremely low key. No shipwreck, no sound effects even, but we start with the post shipwreck scene. We just have Viola, in a blue sari, and the sailor at the front of thestage with Orsino’s house faded into darkness. It’s “lines only” to explain the shipwreck. Also, they go off stage to change clothes. Then the light comes up on Orsino.

Orsino (Nicholas Bishop) and Curio (Luke Latchman). The painting on the actual stage is exactly as Curio looks (this pubicity photo must be earlier)

The major thing here, as at the National production earlier in the year, is the no-expenses spared set and costumes. It’s also a large cast. It is set in the 1890s, the time of aestheticism. Orsino is a would-be pre-Raphaelite painter, first seen painting Curio, clad only in a skimpy loincloth, as an archer. Orsino appears to be bisexual too. Antonio is no longer a piratical sea-captain – they drop the line about the sea fight which means he shouldn’t be risking appearing in Illyria. He is now an Oscar Wilde character sporting a green carnation, so we must assume his past crime in Illyria was sexual. Well, that’s topical. Good job it’s not at the Old Vic.  Antonio’s interest in Sebastian always had a homosexual undercurrent, but here it is overt. The Late Victorian artistic world ambience reminded me strongly of the RSC’s Winter’s Tale from 2013.

Th reference is Victorian interest in the Indian empire. As in virtually every production, they mark out Viola and Sebastian as twins and importantly as foreigners by using ethnicity: in this case, they’re both Indian. Feste, Olivia’s fool, is also Indian, as the programme notes, in a fashionable touch of Victoria & Abdul.  It’s a good choice for the Victorian era and gives us glorious costumes. Bravely they stick to it … the casting is not colour blind. I think that’s the right decision. It would lose its effect if there were Afro-Caribbean and Indian actors elsewhere in the cast. Viola and Sebastian are easily confused because both look alien in the context. I noticed they matched Sebastian’s hair at the back with Viola’s too. Let’s note (as on my previous reviews) that for most of the play, Viola is posing as a boy called Cesario. While we often hear the name Cesario, we never know her actual name is Viola until the last few minutes.

They divide it into Town (Orsino’s palace has a London skyline beyond it) and The country (Olivia’s house). Olivia’s house has an exterior – a large glass conservatory worthy of Kew Gardens, and a richly detailed interior. It also variously has an orchard and a boot room and a garden area with shed for Malvolio’s prison cell.

Town and country are connected by rail, and we have not one but two railway station sets. That’s how Cesario travels between Orsino’s place and Olivia’s. It’s used very well when we first see Sebastian at the station about to board a train, and Antonio decides to risk the law of Illyria (pending harassment charges perhaps?) and follow him. Then it segues into Cesario off to catch the train pursued by Malvolio with Olivia’s ring. That station is basically a backdrop. But later we have the Station Platform 4 plus an organ grinder, food vendor and various others. Like the National Theatre’s Triumph TR4 plus scooter in Twelfth Night earlier in the year, a little Puritanical bell rings in me: wouldn’t it be better to use this vast expenditure by taking productions to more provincial theatres? Too much conspicuous consumption at the RSC and National, while poor provincial theatres struggle to keep afloat. OK, this will surely move to London so they will get plenty of mileage out of the elaborate sets, but even so … OK, the set design is brilliant, stellar, memorable, beautiful. Ah, there’s always a “but.” See later.

Malvolio (Adrian Edmondson)

Last time the RSC did Twelfth Night they cast a first rate serious actor, Jonathan Slinger, trying to be funny as Malvolio. It didn’t really work. Many have maintained that great comic actors easily become great serious actors, but it very rarely happens the other way. Adrian Edmondson is a great comic actor, and indeed can play both straight and tragic with effect. Compare Lenny Henry.  Adrian Edmondson for the most part gives us what the text suggests: an uptight, unpleasant Puritan amid Olivia’s roistering household, and against Orsino’s sophisticated aesthetes. He doesn’t milk the laughs early on at all, though there is always something about his face. This is a (surprisingly) serious Malvolio. In an interview he said:

I’m channeling my former house master … at minor public school, Pocklington, near York – who was a very vicious, pompous, unpleasant human being. 
Adrian Edmondson, The Daily Telegraph, 11.11.2017

That’s how he plays it, which is a valid interpretation. I had teachers like that. He’s not unctuous or snooty either. As I’d expected, he finds a different interpretation. Most Malvolios milk the humour more of the time.

Malvolio’s solo spot (Adrian Edmondson)

He is given full rein to work the audience solo after his cross gartered appearance when he does a solo spot with song which gets repeated. It’s the best thing in the production actually, and it’s just one guy on stage in a funny, but not hilarious, costume. He could have got equal applause … i.e. a lot … on a bare stage with just a funny hat. At the end of the play, there are no laughs at all in the explanation scene. He makes it poignant.

Malvolio and the letter. Rear, L to R: Sir Andrew (Michael Cochrane), Fabia (Sarah Twomey), Sir Toby (John Hodgkinson)

The scene, or rather THE scene in Twelfth Night that we always love is the letter reading with the conspirators watching behind. This was well plotted. Fabia (replacing Fabio) was Sarah Twomey who was outstandingly good as the Scullery Maid here. The  garden has three statues, two headless, armless and nude, which they stand behind. Then they look over and become the heads and arms, then keep freezing into classical statue poses as they get nearer Malvolio. He started with my favourite line (the C, U … T and P line) but did it fast and unpointed, then the other three repeated it to point it. It didn’t work for me. Better to let Malvolio bring out the joke on his own.  I didn’t mind the repeating, just the initial throwaway.

Pretending to be statues

Feste is always the hardest part to bring off, and I realised what a good idea it was to replace him altogether at The Globe. So here, Feste is Olivia’s Indian servant (Beruce Khan). Trouble is, he’s a modern Indian with an RP accent. If we take this as comedy, I’m afraid you need a touch of Peter Sellers “Goodness Gracious Me” accent, or Michael Bates as Bearer Rangi in It Ain’t Half Hot Mum (or even the punkah wallah and char wallah). You really would be in deep trouble and accused of racism if you did that in 2017, and both the examples are now unacceptable … English men playing “funny Indians.” But someone of Indian ethnicity should be allowed to find humour and an Indian accent.

Viola as Cesario (Dinita Gohil) and Olivia (Kara Tointon)

Viola / Cesario and Sebastian are Indian in identical dress. There is a line in the original about them sounding alike as well as looking alike. In the RSC in 2012, both had Irish accents. Here, I was amazed they didn’t have Indian inflections … not the comic one suggested for Feste, but standard educated Indian accents. Sebastian has just a tinge, but Viola none. I also thought she was over-enuciating. We both missed the aspect of “I am a girl dressed up pretending to be a boy” which can be pointed in many ways … sudden change of voice, avoidance of a chest to chest hug, change of gait to a more manly one when she has forgotten. I didn’t feel the Cesario / Antonio kiss had the magnetic chemistry it should. See below – Michael Billington took the opposite view on her Viola.

Kara Tointon’s Olivia is stunning to look at, and is a powerful Olivia. She’s in her mid-30s, and I’m reminded of Peter Hall’s edict quoted elsewhere. The gist is, don’t cast Olivia as a sophisticated beauty (as here), but as a girl emerging into womanhood. Orsino is interestingly sexually ambivalent.

Sir Toby Belch (John Hio

As to our comic quartet: Sir Toby Belch (John Hodgkinson), Sir Andrew Aguecheek (Michael Cochrane), Maria (Viviene Parry) and Fabia (Sarah Twomey). Elsewhere this year, this quartet have been played younger every time. This production was traditional and older. John Hodgkinson is a tall bloke, and offers a Fallstaffian Sir Toby, which is the way it always used to be played, and would have been in Shakespeare’s day: same actor.  The loud farting early on is in character. He used his height to enormous effect when he lifted Sarah Twomey up to his face level to address her. The thing is, I don’t see Sir Toby as Falstaff. This man is the arch manipulator, gulling Malvolio in one direction, and Sir Andrew in the other. He needs to be an absolute bastard, and I’d have him feigning drunk, not being drunk.

Michael Cochrane is a doddery (though extremely sprightly when need be) Sir Andrew. Vivien Parry gets much humour from a Welsh accent as Maria, and yes, Shakespeare was always fond of getting a laugh from that too. Why does a Welsh accent work? I don’t know, but it does. Katy Owen’s Globe Malvolio was Welsh-accented too. Sarah Twomey was the perfect rural lass. Overall, it was the way of many Twelfth Nights, though not recent ones.

Maria (Vivien Parry, standing) plus the household gather to watch Malvolio’s cross gartered japes

I have to be critical. The whole is off in pace. I don’t know how quite, but it definitely lacks momentum. I’d guess over-attention to the look of it at the expense of the characterisation. As one review says making the same point: this is early. It has a long run ahead and may “bed in” later, but while they’re doing everything “right” there’s a lack of interactive magic. It may come, and I happily expect comments in a month or so saying “How could you say that? It all gelled perfectly last night.” The music by Nigel Hess is superb throughout, as is Simon Higlett’s set design. I think that’s the problem. Set changes are fairly swift and covered by the fantastic swelling music, but inevitably it’s a series of great gaps in the flow of the play.  I kept thinking back to The Globe’s open stage and uninterrupted flow in contrast.

The length was just right: two hours 20 minutes. There were lengthy song sequences from Feste and Malvolio that had been carefully researched … a combination of Elizabethan lyrics and Marie Lloyd era Music Hall tunes. It was heavily cut … they all have been this year. Personally, I’d start cutting with Feste every time WHOEVER is playing it, but Feste seemed to keep a lot of lines.

The other issue is that overall, in spite of the set and costumes to die for, is that it comes across as extremely conventional, and indeed conservative compared to the National’s 2017 version, but even more so compared to Emma Rice’s 1970s disco / Scottish island version at The Globe. The older actors are superb, seen them all before, they’re great … but The Globe and National felt so “young” and exuberant and different. This production came across as staid in comparison. In spite of many magic moments, it simply wasn’t as funny as the other three productions this year. Twelfth Night is not only about humour. You should feel (and perhaps vocalize) an “Ahhh!” when everything is resolved. I didn’t get the Aah! factor in the somewhat drawn out sombre ending.

At the start of the year, looking forward to all four versions, we both fully expected this to be easily the best. Christopher Luscombe’s track record with Love’s Labour’s Lost, Love’s Labour’s Won, While The Sun Shines and Nell Gwynne meant we were convinced this version would outshine the others. It didn’t. For both of us, the best of the year was Emma Rice’s Globe version, followed by the National Theatre version. Frankly, we enjoyed the young cast of actor / musicians at The Watermill more than this. It’s about vibrancy, life, youth. This felt stolid, and while it must be the most beautiful set of the year, and costumes too, the fabulous set impeded the play. Most people haven’t seen four versions this year, and if it’s the only one you’ve seen this year, you will be knocked out by it.

It exploded into life after the curtain calls with the final dance (below) … that should be reprising the liveliness of the play, rather than starting it off.

To my great surprise … only three stars. I’m comforted that my favourite critics, Messrs Billington & Cavendish, awarded the same.

***

The company in the final dance

MINOR GRIEVANCES

We had booked for Saturday afternoon, so as to drive up and back in a day. The RSC announced that Ade Edmondson would not be doing the Saturday, but well after we had booked. So we had to rebook for Friday night. We could not even get seats together, nor the great seats we had booked for the Saturday. We had to book an overnight hotel not wanting a 145 mile late evening drive. The RSC refunded the £20 price difference in a voucher that can only be used for tickets or membership which I won’t remember to re-use. It should have been a straight credit card refund, or at least a voucher usable on meals or in the shop. Being out the cost of the hotel and an extra restaurant meal, I find the voucher refund miserly.

WHAT THE PAPERS SAID

4
Natasha Tripney, The Stage ****

The early scenes are a bit stodgy and the quality of the performances vary but this is a lavish production – one with West End intent – that balances its silliness and showiness with emotional nuance.

Catherine Vonledebur, What’s On Stage, ****

3

Domenic Cavendish, The Telegraph ***

 There’s something a little self-admiring about this transposition, a feeling that the director is tickling the Merchant Ivories as it were. The lavish country-house settings proved inspired for his superlative Edwardian/Great War Love’s Labour’s Lost and Much Ado. By returning again to a class-bound, hierarchical England, with supportingly evocative lush compositions from Nigel Hess, he’s in danger of looking like a one-trick pony.

Michael Billington, Guardian ***

Dinita Gohil is the male-disguised Viola who occupies pride of place in the languidly luxurious, sexually ambivalent household of Orsino. Gohil, in the best performance of the evening, is a bright-eyed figure who surrenders happily to Orsino’s kisses and who delivers the famous “willow cabin” speech with a level of rapture I have not heard in ages.

Jane Edwardes, Sunday Times, ***

LINKS TO REVIEWS ON THIS BLOG

Many of the cast were in the ETT touring version of Nell Gwynne.

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, Shakespeare’s Globe, 2021

CHRISTOPHER LUSCOMBE (director)
Love’s Labour’s Lost– RSC 2014
Love’s Labour’s Won RSC 2014
Love’s Labour’s Lost, RSC / Chichester 2016
Much Ado About Nothing, RSC / Chichester 2016
Travels With My Aunt, Chichester 2016
While The Sun Shines,  by Terence Rattigan, Bath 2016
Nell Gwynne, Globe 2015

JOHN HODGKINSON
Love’s Labour’s Lost– RSC 2014 (Don Armado)
Love’s Labour’s Won RSC 2014 (Don Pedro)
Hangmen, by Martin McDonagh, 2015 (Pierrepointe)
Love’s Labour’s Lost, RSC / Chichester 2016 (Don Armado)
Much Ado About Nothing, RSC / Chichester 2016 (Don Pedro)
The Ferryman, by Jez Butterworth, Royal Court, 2017 (Tom Kettle)

MICHAEL COCHRANE
While The Sun Shines,  by Terence Rattigan, Bath 2016 (Duke of Ayr)

NICHOLAS BISHOP
While The Sun Shines,  by Terence Rattigan, Bath 2016 (Lt. Colbert)

VIVIEN PARRY
The Shoemaker’s Holiday by Thomas Dekker, RSC 2015

TOM BYRNE
Echo’s End, Salisbury 2017

SARAH TWOMEY
Platonov, by Chekhov, Chichester 2015
The Seagull, Chichester, Chichester 2015