Twelfth Night is an outdoor production performed as the sun goes down in the beautiful surroundings of Kew Gardens. It sounds idyllic, and the show gets off to a rousing start with a funny version of ‘The 12 Days of Christmas’ which sets the comic tone and gives a few welcome pointers to the plot. Unfortunately, it all goes downhill from there.
Twelfth Night tells the story of shipwrecked twins, Viola and Sebastian, who both believe the other to have drowned. Viola disguises herself as a young man called Cesario and falls in love with Duke Orsino. The Duke is in love with Countess Olivia but she then falls for Cesario. It’s the usual Shakespearean gender identity stuff, accompanied by a motley crew of fools, (ig)noblemen and servants who provide the subplots and bawdy comic relief before we get to the ‘happy ever after’ ending for most of the characters.
This is a long show, coming in at just under three hours, and this cannot all be blamed on Shakespeare. The well-established Australian Shakespeare Company, now in their tenth year at Kew Gardens, have chosen to add some additional comic business, contemporary references and more songs to their version of this famous comedy. Sadly, most of it falls very flat.
On the plus side, there is a large cast, meaning the actors do not have to double up on roles. Nicole Nabout as the Countess deserves a shout out for doing a great job against the backdrop of aircraft noise and flocks of rowdy birds. Her Olivia is breathless and slightly manic and becomes an unexpected part of the show’s funnier moments. At the heart of the play is talented musician Alex Cooper as Feste, the guitar playing jester. Despite being the ‘fool’ of the piece, Feste cracks very few jokes, instead showing his wit through clever wordplay.
Cooper also takes the lead on most of the music – something that is essential to any performance of Twelfth Night. “If music be the food of love, play on” is the famous opening line of the play, and there are six songs with lyrics in the original text. Director Glenn Elstom has chosen to give his actors a glam rock makeover, leading to an expectation that the music might follow suit. In fact, it is generally gentle acoustic folk, including a cringe-inducing moment when the cast of clowns and jesters tries to get the audience to sing a song. This didn’t work at all as the crowd was not accompanied, the words and meter were complex, and the cast had to resort to chastising the audience for not joining in. It was a relief when that part finished, but they doubled down and dragged some of the audience onto the stage to dance. “Who are all these people I have never seen before?” asked Malvolio in a rare laugh-out loud moment.
Shakespeare’s work is very resilient and can be reinterpreted in many ways, but this show did not do justice to the source material. More pantomime than comedy play, we were given Sir Toby Belch (Jackson McGovern) and Sir Andrew Aguecheek (Tony Rive) as the ‘ugly sisters,’ wearing inexplicable makeup and hamming it up through interminable, over extended scenes. They both display enormous commitment and energy but fail to lift the show to the level that the last 400 years of performances prove it can reach. As the show limped along, I found my mind wandering to work out which of the actors was native Australian and which might be ex-pats now based down under, given all the accents on display. For instance, English ‘upper-class twit’ version of Malvolio is played by Aussie actor, Maverick Newman who gets a few chuckles with his pompous portrayal.
There is no denying that the cast have talent, but some of the decisions taken on the staging are baffling. The set is disappointingly poor given the expectations created by last year’s Macbeth which featured a truly spectacular set. There is a glass fronted ball-pit for no reason at all, and the 1970s glam rock face paint – which includes David Bowie’s Aladdin Sane lightning flash – makes absolutely no sense. At one point a sort of sexy ‘policeman’ arrives on stage dressed in satin hot-pants and sparkly boots, looking less Abba and more Benny Hill. It’s baffling. A truly glam rock version might have been fun, but this show lacks cohesiveness and needs to be tighter, funnier and delivered with more passion.
Despite the amazing setting and the opportunity to visit the gardens beforehand (including the current Henry Moore sculpture exhibition), this performance does not deliver the night of laughter and mayhem that we are promised, and which I know is possible with Twelfth Night. A disappointment.
Meet Sir Toby Belch – the man believed to have invented partying; Sir Andrew Aguecheek – dispossessed of any intelligence and naturally silly; Malvolio – a power-hungry puritan who falls from a great moral height when pushed by Sir Toby; and Maria – the housemaid who outwits Malvolio and house-trains Sir Toby. Then there’s Viola, the shipwrecked girl who cross-dresses as a boy to find work, Olivia, the grieving noblewoman who rejects one suitor only to fall for another in disguise, and Orsino, the lovesick Duke whose heart changes course when truth and identity collide.
TWELFTH NIGHT
Theatre on Kew
25 July to 30 August 2026
