Urban World

Twelfth Night

Hoxton Hall, Hammersmith. January 10^th – January 13^th 2011

Cast List

Alexis Jayne Defoe (Stand-in for Kristal Sisodia) - Viola

Steven Rostance – Duke Orsino

Andrew Venning – Feste

Michael Good – Malvolio

Andrew Goddard – Sir Toby Belch

Taniel Yusef – Maria

Christopher Mark – Sir Andrew Aguecheek

Rebecca Tanwen – Olivia

Helen Brushett – Valentine

Billie Higson – Curio

Carl Chambers – Sebastian

Michael Hall – Captain, Officer, Priest

Trevor Murphy – Antonio

 

Directed by

Chris Chambers

 

It all begins with some raucous singing, and the audience are encouraged to join in as loudly as they can. And why not, the first line of the play does extol the benefits of music and calls for more. Another Way Theatre gleefully complies.

Director Chris Chambers brings the audience an ‘old time music hall’ inspired version of Twelfth Night. Delightfully, it loses nothing at all of the essential properties of the play, particularly the fact that it begins with death, loss and unrequited love. What this production does, is take all that, and tell it using music, trickery and mischief; which, after all, is exactly what we all love about Twelfth Night.

The performances were outstanding. Yusef, in particular (as Maria, Olivia’s lady in waiting) is wonderfully devious and feisty. You know she’s being unbelievably cruel but you just can’t hate her for it. Good (as Malvolio) is superb. He makes you loathe him, yet weep with him when he’s so spitefully fooled... And Andrew Venning as Feste, You really must see him in action. No one in the cast lets the group down. They are uniformly superb.

Members of the cast also accompany the performance with set musical pieces. These work beautifully with the action, punctuating the scenes without intruding. However, the projections running on a screen behind the cast didn’t entirely work for me. I found that they were unnecessary in commanding the focus of the audience. In many cases, they were simply used to project certain aspects of the action that were hidden for the audience. Aspects that, I feel, we could have worked out for ourselves.

All in all, go and see this play. If you love Twelfth Night, you have absolutely no excuse to miss it at Hoxton Hall. Even if you don’t, I guarantee that you will still have a very enjoyable night out.