Twelfth Night (Sutton Hoo, Suffolk)
Verdict: Outdoors – and a bit outrageous
Star rating: 4/5
The Red Rose Chain company’s annual Shakespeare at this Anglo-Saxon site is always fast-moving and joyfully youthful.
So what better memorial to its leader Jo Carrick, who died this year, than a reprise of her take on Twelfth Night?
Georgia Redgrave and Joseph Russell are the shipwrecked twins, spreading accidental confusion until their final meeting – and everyone’s happy endings.
In a tight, seven-member cast Russell doubles as the mischievous maid Maria, with some miraculous lightning costume changes somewhere beyond the giant chestnut tree overhanging the stage.
Rag-tag troupe? Don’t be fooled. The Red Rose Chain company are proper Shakespeareans
Orsino doubles, too; Darren Latham’s solemn lovesick idiot reappearing in a ridiculous drag wig as Sir Andrew Aguecheek.
Some lines, like Orsino’s opening, become music-hall songs; and even more fun is a particular quirk: the sea-captain Antonio who befriends Sebastian is played by a hairy and ingenious puppet dog.
To the glee of an all-ages audience, Antonio runs riot, prowls or growls, and is neatly manoeuvred by whichever cast member is not doing anything else at the time. Trust me, it works.
So does diminutive Emily Jane Kerr as Sir Toby Belch, proffering a hipflask to the startled Mayor of Ipswich on one high-speed tour of the auditorium.
The vigorous and absurd fight scenes are splendidly risky and – on a darker note – there’s real torment for Vincent Moisy’s Malvolio as darkness falls in the second half.
Salty sea dog: The sea captain Antonio, played by a hairy puppet dog, sidles up to Olivia (Nadia Jackson) in Red Rose Chain’s ingenious production
Double duty: Darren Latham as Orsino (left) and a bewigged Sir Andrew Aguecheek (right, with Emily Jane Kerr as Sir Toby Belch)
Moisy is terrific: last year’s Hamlet, and lead builder of wooden beach-hut set, he plays it tightly officer-class, suddenly touching when he believes himself desired, then alarming in full-body bumblebee yellow stripes.
But for all the nonsense, led throughout by Alec Murray’s hyperactive Feste, David Newsom and Katy Latham keep the Carrick tradition which made this company into proper Shakespeareans despite the rag-tag costumes and panto moments. Nobody needs a mic, despite the wide auditorium; and poetry, yearning and sadness run alongside the audience-rousing jokes.
A grand evening. May it stay fair for them and their happy audiences.
Theatre In The Forest’s production of Twelfth Night runs until August 22.
