Twelfth Night is a play of capricious moods, swinging dizzily between laughter and melancholy. A character describes one of its subplots as ‘sportful malice’, a phrase that will resonate with any would-be Christmas Grinch. The RSC production currently playing at the Barbican Centre leans into the tonal unease of Shakespeare’s play, situating it in a world of gothic surrealism inspired by the aesthetic of American artist Edward Gorey (1925-2000). Sceptics may lament this ‘gimmickry’ but it beautifully amplifies the inveterate strangeness of a play too often performed as an upstairs-downstairs social comedy, which, in fact, paves the way for Shakespeare’s late romances.
The playwright spins Twelfth Night from the same yarn as earlier comedies: identical twins, shipwrecks, and confused identities. After a thunderous sea storm Viola is shipwrecked in Illyria and quickly heads to the Court of Orsino to seek her fortune. He pines away after Countess Olivia, a haughty aristocrat, who adopts a nun-like habit and has (apparently) forsworn men. As ‘Cesario’, Viola acts as a go-between for Orsino and soon has Olivia enthralled. Meanwhile, the Countess’ mansion is running amok due to her wastrel cousin Sir Toby Belch and his friend Andrew Aguecheek, who plot to humiliate Malvolio, the puritanical steward besotted with his socially superior mistress.
Designer James Cotterill bases the RSC set around a gargantuan organ which foregrounds the play’s preoccupation with music. If ‘music be the food of love,’ as Orsino proclaims, the gloomy choral notes and jagged glissandos that make up Matt Maltese’s score do not bode well. The organ serves a double function: the forest of pipes makes a prime spying spot for Malvolio’s tricksters (Belch and Aguecheek) to revel in their mischief, and later, rather saucily, the deluded steward slides down a pipe like a pole dancer, garbed in yellow stockings and suspenders in a failed bid to woo Olivia.
Michael Grady-Hall, who plays the clown Feste, appears to come into the play as if from another world, descending onto the stage via a wire. Dressed in a tiered meringue of frothy yellow and black tulle, he’s the savvy exhibitionist who yokes together the play’s light and dark. With a nod to the Christmas panto, director Prasanna Puwanarajah extends Feste’s foolery into the auditorium: he cedes control of the theatre’s lighting, playfully opens and closes doors in the stalls, and gaily plays juggling games with the front row. Of all the characters, he has the broadest perspective, existing as he does outside of the social hierarchies and emotional entanglements that impair judgement.
While Feste often takes centre stage, this is not to say that other actors were sacrificed to the play’s (many) shadows. Samuel West plays Malvolio as a puritanical party-pooper. He oozes comic self-delusion in his quest for social elevation yet is intensely moving as he laments being made ‘the most notorious geck and gull/ That e’er invention play’d on’. Freema Agyeman makes for a standoffish but lusty Olivia. Suspicious of the world, she hides behind her black mourning veil until an epicene youth catches her eye. This love object is Gwyenth Keyworth’s alluring pageboy ‘Cesario’, properly known as Viola. She brings to the role the quivering uncertainty of someone recently washed ashore in a foreign land and an emotional wound that Olivia can connect with. Daniel Monks’ Orsino, by contrast, is a self-deceived poser, whose fascination with love is like that of an actor pining for a coveted role.
In this topsy-turvy production, the ending seesaws between comic and tragic. For instance, Olivia rejoices upon learning that Viola and Sebastian are identical twins. ‘Most wonderful!’ she cries, scooping the sibs up in her arms, her mind awhirl with new sexual possibilities. Of course, not everyone is filled with joy. Malvolio has been thoroughly humiliated and promises to be revenged ‘on the whole pack of you’. Unfinished business, clearly. (Shakespeare, however, never flattered Malvolio with his own spin-off revenge tragedy.)
Admittedly, leaving the theatre, I felt like I’d been complicit in a cruel trick. For, as Feste’s closing song reminds us, once laughter has fled, all we are left with is the sad pelting of the wind and the rain. Puwanarajah’s production might not win over all its critics. Some may argue it sides too much with melancholy. But this unevenness is intentional, reflecting that pain often feels protracted and laughter all too brief. Zany, whimsical and whip-smart, this Twelfth Night proves that Shakespeare’s plays continue to teem with interpretive possibility. A masterclass in misrule.
Twelfth Night ☆☆☆☆☆
By William Shakespeare
Director: Prasanna Puwanarajah
Cast includes: Freema Agyeman; Michael Grady-Hall; Gwyneth Keyworth; Samuel West; Daniel Monks.
Until: 8th December 2025 to 17th January 2026
Running Time: 2 hours and 55 minutes, including a 20-minute interval
Review by Olivia Hurton