'Twelfth Night' review — this carnivalesque production steers a course between the sad and the sublime

Read our review of comedy Twelfth Night, directed by Robin Belfield, now in performances at Shakespeare's Globe to 25 October.

The headgear has it in the new Globe production of Twelfth Night, which marks the Shakespeare directing debut at this address of Robin Belfield following his production at the Globe last year of the new play Princess Essex. Twelfth Night, by contrast, is spoken of in hallowed tones. Not only did a 2013 Globe production reach Broadway, to rave reviews, but many regard Mark Rylance’s Tony-winning Olivia in that cast as an all-time great performance.

That’s a lot, then, to live up to, and Belfield’s production gets much of this tricky text right. From the outset, you’re enraptured by visuals that include a colourful cavalcade of costumes – Malvolio’s famous yellow stockings here risk being upstaged by the sartorial splendour of his colleagues – and headdresses that suggest The Lion King one minute, Alice in Wonderland run riot the next.

The carnival-style brio on view throughout careers through the intricately plotted narrative in two and a half hours, and there’s a degree of sexual abandon on view that may well surprise more casual playgoers in the audience – and I’m not just talking about the sustained smooch between Viola’s twin, Sebastian (Kwami Odoom), and his devoted sea captain Antonio (Max Keeble).

But it takes a while for the disparate strands of the narrative to cohere, and for much of the first half, at least, you’re aware of japery for the sake of it. Ian Drysdale’s Andrew Aguecheek is a pugilistic goofball who at one point gets sent packing, whilst Jocelyn Jee Esien’s bibulous Lady (formerly Toby) Belch looks like she might be happier quaffing ale at the Anchor Bankside just nearby.

It’s always thrilling when this theatre invites newcomers to its ranks, amongst whom the National Theatre semi-regular Ronkẹ Adékọluẹ́jọ́ is very welcome indeed. But as the lovesick Viola who spends much of the play disguised as the male Cesario, this fine performer only intermittently lands the passion and pathos that help drive the play forward, and, playing two points in a quasi-libidinous triangle, Solomon Israel (Orsino) and Laura Hanna (Olivia) similarly drift in and out of focus.

The show is on firmer footing away from its defining trio. As the cruelly debased Malvolio, Pearce Quigley is given to roaring the letter 'M' of his name and prancing about in y-fronts that are noticeably stained by the end. As is true of the production of The Merry Wives of Windsor playing concurrently at the Globe, this Twelfth Night gives off a keen sense of a society quick to slander, and there’s a distinct connection felt between the fate of Falstaff in that bourgeois comedy and Malvolio here.

Quigley’s signature deadpan is now so embedded within him that he might as well be doing it in his sleep. But it nonetheless comes as a genuine shock when this human sheepdog, flowing beard and all, exits through the audience vowing revenge, as if we are all somehow complicit in the abrasions that turn this cartwheeling courtier into a tragic victim.

Best of all is Jos Vantyler’s beautifully spoken (and danced), Harlequinade-adjacent Feste, who turns the countess Olivia’s fool into the fulcrum of the play. He tosses off (sorry) a linguistic reference early on in conversation with Maria (a tart Alison Halstead) of being “well hanged”, but he steers an expert course through the contrasting shores of the sublime and the sad between which this play navigates.

The production may try a little too hard to engage the crowd in a vapid clap-along, but Vantyler knows when to cut through such frippery to get at a more doleful truth: life can be richly entertaining, to be sure, but just wait till it starts to rain.

Twelfth Night is at Shakespeare's Globe to 25 October. Book Twelfth Night tickets on LondonTheatre.co.uk.

Photo credit: Twelfth Night (Photos by Helen Murray)