Interview: ‘Twelfth Night Fever’, More The Merrier

Ahead of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2024, we’re chatting with a range of creatives who will be heading to the city over August to find out more about their shows. Today we’re chatting with More The Merrier’s David Aldred about their piece, Twelfth Night Fever.

Can you tell us a bit about you and your career so far..

It’s been quite a journey since I started acting with the Stamford Shakespeare Company as a young boy. Now, I am a teacher of Drama, as well as a director of theatre and a playwright. In my current post I am Head of Drama at a school for boys who are all neurodiverse. I’ve been teaching for twenty years but before that I worked as a creative in advertising and also ran a theatre company in Trinidad, where I lived for 12 years. I am a hybrid: half Trinidadian, half English and so describe myself as Tringlish.

What is your show about?

Twelfth Night Fever is an adaptation of Shakespeare’s gender-bending comedy with lots of disco music and dancing involved. As lovers of the bard’s comedies will know, you can expect in-jokes about boys dressing up as girls, mistaken identities, general confusion, and melodramatic conflict, but all ending happily with lovers coupled up. In other words, just like Love Island. In our version, the play ends with a massive dance off. Shakespeare is probably rolling his eyes somewhere.

What was the inspiration for your show and what’s the development process been to get to this stage?

Last year, we brought Rockbeth, a modernised and musicalized adaptation of Macbeth, to the Fringe and it was so well received, winning a Fringe Sell-out Laurel, that we thought: let’s have another romp with a Shakespeare play. So far, we have performed Twelfth Night Fever to audiences at our school in Surrey and we are now transferring to Haslemere Hall, before taking it on the road to Edinburgh in August. We have had so much support and generosity along the way – with many kind sponsors making it possible for us to do the tour.

What made you want to take Twelfth Night Fever to the Fringe?

I love taking shows up to the Fringe and have been doing it for many years now. It’s the best place to see a wide range of new and exciting work, and to rub shoulders with other artists. For our students of drama, it is an incredibly rich diet of theatre that always has a powerful impact on their own creative work. This will be fantastic exposure for our talented cast, who are all neurodiverse and have had to overcome many personal challenges in order to perform on stage at the world’s largest arts festival.

Apart from seeing your show, what’s your top tip for anybody heading for Edinburgh this summer?

Take a punt! There is so much on offer. We will go and see as much as possible – from stand-up to musicals to improv to experimental theatre. A good way to discover stuff is to speak to other playgoers on the Mile and find out what’s got the buzz. That’s how Rockbeth got its audiences last year – the word-of-mouth buzz worked for us then and let’s hope we can do the same with Twelfth Night Fever.

Why should people book to see Twelfth Night Fever?

If you enjoy musicals, Shakespeare and disco (and who doesn’t?!) then this is the show for you. It is glitzy and joyful, and our audiences come out beaming with smiles. Also, it’s a guaranteed laugh, and we could all do with more laughter in our lives.

When and where can people see your show?

We are at theSpace Triplex for one week only 12-17 August at 2.40pm. Put on your dancing shoes and come join the party.