Twelfth Night – Orange Tree Theatre, London

Writer: William Shakespeare

Director: Tom Littler

Given a musical flavour, Tom Littler’s first Christmas production for the Orange Tree Theatre is Twelfth Night, which the Artistic Director relocates to the late 1940s, allowing composer Stefan Bednarczyk (who simultaneously plays Feste, the Fool) to set the tone through the wistful music of the era. Far more successful in its comic excesses than its central love stories, the energy of this production waxes and wanes, but the show really starts to come alive when its starry secondary cast causes significant and rather enjoyable mischief as they plot to bring down the dour Malvolio.

Littler’s production has made a bold staging choice, placing a grand piano in the centre of the very small stage around which the action must circulate. The piano is itself on a revolve that has occasional purpose, yet – musical accompaniment aside – it is a notable block in the action. When it works, it works beautifully, but, at others, it proves a distraction, especially from the weaker presentation of the lovers who are never truly alone on stage. It also impedes the farcical aspects of the plot when Sir Toby Belch and crew career around in slightly restrained havoc.

The production’s least successful aspect is the two sets of lovers, and Littler hardly knows what to do with them, conjuring up very little chemistry in either pairing and leaving much of the heavy flirting to Dorothea Myer-Bennett’s Olivia, who has drive and charisma enough for all of them. Her giggly noblewoman is all aflutter in the presence of Cesario (Viola in disguise), and as her racing desire defeats propriety, Myer-Bennett squeezes every bit of joy out of it. So, in this sparkier interpretation, Patrica Allison’s mooning Viola is too earnest, missing opportunities to play the woman playing the man, while Tom Kanji’s Orsino is strangely pallid, making it hard to understand why Viola risks so much to be near him.

Fortunately, Littler can rely on the expert skill of his wider cast and putting Oliver Ford Davies, Jane Asher, Clive Francis and Robert Mountford together proves a winning formula as this group of experienced actors delivers the ` balance the production is looking for. From a slow start, a delightful rapport develops, and there is a delicious cunning in the conspiratorial malice directed towards Malvolio. Ford Davies initially channels his Polonius as Malvolio delivers sage advice, but the skipping enthusiasm he masters when believing he is loved by Olivia is matched only by the bittersweet discovery of the deception, and Ford Davies elicits considerable sympathy for a character often presented as ridiculous.

The post-war setting eventually adds little to the plot, although Anne Black and Neil Irish’s set and costume design are a stylish combination of funereal black and gold, and like many approaches to this play, it struggles to maintain enough energy to resolve the dual identity drama once Malvolio’s story has been dispatched. Bednarczyk’s musical interludes sometimes borrow lyrics from Shakespeare’s other plays and build on the period setting to give this comic Twelfth Night a melancholy end.

Runs Until 25 January 2025