Twelfth Night, Shakespeare North Playhouse Review
Written by Aimee for Theatre & Tonic
Disclaimer: Gifted tickets in exchange for an honest review.
Twelfth Night is one of Shakespeare’s well loved comedies. It’s a play about love, following the story of twin siblings Sebastian and Viola who are separated by a shipwreck, with each believing that the other is dead. After this, Viola finds herself posing as a man and happens to become tangled in a complicated almost love triangle. Mayhem ensues as the plot unravels, making it a funny night out for all at the theatre.
This production in particular at Shakespeare North Playhouse has been created by theatre company Not Too Tame. In this version, elements of the show have been changed to fit the values that the company stands for, and their desire to make their shows feel less like traditional theatre and more like a gig. The show achieves this by using touring storage boxes to build up the set, props such as microphone stands, and sometimes costumes that are reminiscent of what you would expect to see backstage crew wearing. Whilst they are rather successful at achieving what they set out to make, I did find with this particular Shakespeare play that it didn’t always work. At the start, the siblings are separated by what looks like an incident with drugs at a gig, which goes with the theme of making this feel like it was set within the music industry. However, it meant that when the shipwreck was later mentioned in the script, it felt almost confusing as to what had actually happened, and whether that opening scene actually made any sense anymore.
When it comes to the performances it really felt like this whole cast did well to work together as a team, although there were a few standouts. Louise Haggerty was particularly funny and memorable as Feste, the jester-like character who never failed to get a laugh out of the audience. She framed the show by involving us in a fun pre-show sing along type moment, whilst also introducing and narrating the beginning and end of the story. Given the musical theme of this production there were some excellent moments in which the cast got to play different instruments, with some of them getting the chance to show off their vocal skills. I was particularly impressed by Purvi Parmar (playing Olivia) who got the chance to belt out a beautiful song that had me shocked as it was not what I was expecting to happen.
The set and costume design by the company Good Teeth, was rather simplistic, but it worked. This theatre is in the round and so there is no backdrop to the set. Instead on 2 opposite sides of the stage sat small piles of touring boxes that were used for many different purposes (such as chairs, tables, objects to hide behind). Although small they helped to keep this production grounded within the music industry, and constantly remained on the stage as a constant reminder of that setting.
Dean Fairhurst was in control of the compositions for this, and I think he did a fantastic job. Not a single song used in the show felt out of place or weird. They were blended in smoothly into the script, and they really sounded just as if they belonged there. My only issue with the music is that at times the balance of sound wasn’t great. There were moments, especially towards the end, where the music was much more overpowering, which meant you then couldn’t really hear what was being sung. Other than that, the selection and arrangement of the music itself was fantastic.
One final aspect that I wanted to mention was how good this production was at making (for the most part) Shakespeare understandable. I am personally someone who struggles a lot understanding the language and having to interpret what is going on. For many years I didn’t touch any Shakespeare productions because of this. However, Not Too Tame have made it so this production is easy to follow. Even if you don’t always understand what the words mean, the visuals that accompany them are great at keeping you engaged and connected with the story. Sometimes it can feel easy to get overwhelmed by all the Shakespearean language, but by making the visuals easy to digest you open more people up to the idea of seeing a Shakespeare play, and you might even just start to learn some of the language along the way.
Twelfth Night is currently running at Shakespeare North Playhouse until Saturday 29th June.
☆ ☆ ☆
