David Farr’s account of Twelfth Night begins arrestingly, with Viola clambering onstage from a sloshing pool of water. It is a gesture symptomatic of a production that revels in deft staging but doesn’t offer a sufficiently crisp sense of story.
Farr emphasises the play’s comic aspects. The results are sometimes hilarious but don’t have enough fluency, and unruliness prevails over the text’s notes of melancholy.
The main strength is Jonathan Slinger’s Malvolio. An actor capable of conveying psychotic menace, Slinger here bears a resemblance to Mark Williams’s “Suits you, sir” tailor in The Fast Show, and his manner is at first fussily corporate. Affection for his mistress Olivia changes him into a creepily smiling automaton, and when he finds his enthusiasm misdirected his appetite for revenge is expressed with unusual rawness.
Emily Taaffe is an elfin Viola, and Kirsty Bushell’s Olivia impresses in the final scenes. But there are insipid performances too, with little relish of Shakespeare’s language. Kevin McMonagle’s Feste is especially curious — wonderful at the songs, the rest of the time prone to gabbling. Warm, simple music by Adem Ilhan and a striking Jon Bausor design are among the stronger features of a production that’s clever yet uneven.
Until October 6 (0844 800 1110, rsc.org.uk)
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