Twelfth Night
William Shakespeare
Directed by Chris Avery
Shakespeare at the Towers
Buckden Towers, St Neots
Star rating 4
Well, this respected, 65 year old company formerly known as Shakespeare at the George, has fallen squarely on its feet. Following the unexpected termination of its contract with Greene King to stage annual shows at the George Hotel in Huntingdon last year, it has moved to the gloriously scenic Buckden Towers which has nearly 1000 years of history seeping out of every brick. It is now a conference and retreat centre run by the Clarentian missionaries and its knot garden is the perfect setting for Shakespeare – with a bigger playing area and more seating. Newly rebranded as Shakespeare at the Towers, the company has a decidedly fresh spring its step.
A quick recap of Shakespeare’s most sexually ambiguous plot in case you’re new to it: Viola and her twin brother Sebastian are shipwrecked off Illyria and each thinks the other dead. Viola disguises herself as a young man and goes to work for Count Orsino who thinks he’s in love with unobtainable Olivia. Viola has by now fallen in love with Orsino and, when she’s sent with messages, Olivia falls in love with her. Then Sebastian turns up so Olivia can marry him and eventually Orsino realises where his affections really lie. It’s situation comedy and mistaken identity for which disbelief has to be willingly suspended because of course Viola and Sebastian couldn’t possibly really be confused with each other. In parallel we get shenanigans in Olivia’s household involving her pompous steward, Malvolio and her drunken uncle Sir Toby Belch.
There are a number of new faces in the generally strong cast. Sally le Page commands the stage as Olivia, finding petulance and impatience in the character and rueful humour when she finally recognises the feelings which are assailing her unbidden. It’s a nice directorial touch to bring her out of mourning in the second half too. And Tiffany Charnley really nails Viola – feisty, determined, angry, anxious and very keen on Orsino although, as always, it’s hard to fathom why. He is a very “wet” character although in this production Ryan Coetsee does his best to endow him with some charisma.
Familiar faces include Richard Sockett who gives us a richly accomplished Sir Toby Belch – incorrigible but somehow loveable and Sockett really makes us understand why Maria (Alex Priestly – good) is so fond of him. And there’s a finely nuanced performance from Ashton Cull as Malvolio. He makes him self-important and tiresome but resists caricature which somehow highlights the tragedy of the gulling and the madhouse imprisonment.
It’s good (and relatively unusual these days) to see Shakespeare in general, and Twelfth Night in particular, done in a traditional, gimmick-free way. And the setting lends itself to that, especially when the side lights illuminate the dusk after the interval and we see all that nicely coloured velvet and satin to good effect. And director Chris Avery uses two auditorium side entrances and a centre stage archway – more or less as was the norm at the George although the scale is bigger now.
There could have been a problem with sound in this space but for the most part there isn’t. It took five minutes to settle at the performance I saw. After that every word was clearly audible. And that’s quite an achievement without any mic-ing up.
Congratulations to everyone involved in this very pleasing production. An enormous amount ot hard work has gone on behind the scenes to make this move the success it is. Here’s to the next 65 years.
Twelfth Night runs until 05 July
Next year’s show is The Comedy of Errors 23 June – 04 July, 2026
www.saat.org,uk
