Twelfth Night (2013)

Director: Tim Carroll
Writer: William Shakespeare
Stars: Samuel Barnett, Liam Brennan, Paul Chahidi

Shipwrecked twins are lost among love-sick aristocrats, unruly servants, mischievous pleasure seekers, clowns, and a puritan. With music as the bittersweet "food of love," all converge and conspire in this comic journey.

I have seen the BBC production from 1980 with Felicity Kendal as Viola, which was cut in many places, and the Trevor Nunn film from 1996 which had fewer cuts, but a really off-putting Feste in Ben Kingsley. So I was ready for this Shakespeare's Globe performance from 2012 which seems so ideal in all its parts: acting, music, singing, dancing. Once more I felt as though I was back in London circa 1600.

Stephen Fry is splendid as Malvolio, the equal of Alec McCowan or Nigel Hawthorne; he's very dry and punctilious until the love-bug hits him. Mark Rylance makes a touching Olivia, and that dead white makeup is very striking. His timing and gestures are just about perfect. As Olivia's love interest, Johnny Flynn plays very well (I think there can't be anything harder than being a man playing a woman playing a man). Feste is so natural, so lacking in affectations that his performance is easily the best of all I've seen. If I had one reservation it would be the crowded stage in Act V; there's just too much going on to take it all in.

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