Twelfth Night.

Four men playing every part (with a little help from a willing audience) race hilariously through the famous Shakespearean comedy of misdirected love and gender swaps, Twelfth Night. Colour-coded in knee-high socks and braces, they engage the audience with warmth and wit and keep them there through ninety minutes that pass too quickly.

These four stay true to the text and even through the freneticism, shape the characters with just a curtain to change behind and minimal, yet brilliant bicycle-based props to tell the story (though whilst the teasing of Malvolio is comical, he wasn’t sufficiently pompous to deserve it). Their voice projection is magnificent – the clarity at speed is so important when the language isn’t instantly familiar.

The comedy is both in Shakespeare’s words, that bounce along in a rhythm familiar to even occasional students of the Bard, but also in the physical slapstick that these four men perform exhaustingly in front of us.

One of the performers plays the twins Sebastian and Viola: a man playing a man, and playing a woman pretending to be a man, distinguishable only by the turn of a peaked cap. Initially, this is confusing, but it’s all part of the fun, as each of the four men switch from character to character, sometimes acrobatically, leaving their clothes hanging (literally!) as they address it in a different voice and pose. Their changing of accents is impeccable: Welsh, Yorkshire, West Country, Irish then Queen’s English, through to a Scottish brogue (switching perfectly even in an exchange between the two characters one actor inhabits).

They play with the audience: sit in their seats, drink their beer – pulling some to the stage to play extras, even seeking lines of dialogue. They sing well and with passion, and it has just the right amount of self-awareness without it spilling over into the narrative.

These four men and the audience are having a huge amount of fun in an impressive show: one I think Will himself would enjoy immensely.

Mark Wickett

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