Post-pandemic theatre in the UK seems to be bringing us a slew of upbeat musical revivals, classics and feelgood fare. Shakespeare’s most merry of romps, abounding with music, love triangles and pleasing silliness, sits squarely among it. Whether these shows mark a collective retreat into comfort viewing and escapism is a moot point. What is clear is that Sean Holmes’s production excels at the job of lifting us up and making us laugh.
Every comic character is clearly drawn and expertly played. A swaggering and sometimes staggering Sir Toby Belch (Nadine Higgin) comes on with a crate of beer. Andrew Aguecheek (George Fouracres) is a fantastic idiot in pastel colours and a cravat. Victoria Elliott’s wise clown, Feste, is whip-smart and nimble, albeit with a too soft singing voice that doesn’t carry above the orchestra. Sophie Russell plays Malvolio as an understated puritan until bursting into his awful comic incarnation in a yellow body-sock. All are genuinely funny with excellent comic timing, and bring out the full effects of a text that is stuffed full of double meanings and dexterous language.
The dramatic characters duly stick to seriousness, on the whole. Bryan Dick’s Orsino is an intense unrequited lover. Michelle Terry excels as Viola, straight-faced, tormented, only occasionally raising a conspiratorial eyebrow at the audience. Ciarán O’Brien’s Sebastian is the most comic – a kind of Alec Guinness spoof with his cane, his RP and his emphatic actorliness – and is enormously entertaining to watch. Shona Babayemi is poised and stately as Olivia, and knows how to bring physical comedy into the part the more besotted the character becomes.
The production is a faithful one, yet full of imaginative tweaks in its comedy of deception and gender-disguise. Feste, who initially comes on in sparkly dress and stilettos, transforms into an androgynous figure before us, while the play’s same-sex attraction is channelled well in scenes between Orsino and Viola, dressed as the male Cesario.
Viola and Sebastian’s Elizabethan dress clashes with the rest of the cast’s contemporary costumes and marks them out as interlopers in Illyria. Several characters look like modern-day cowboys: Orsino in fringed jacket and shirt; Toby Belch in the long coat and Fedora of an outlaw. Jean Chan’s set resembles a down-at-heel holiday town (jukebox, carousel tiger, tacky welcome sign) but with surreal touches (a dead stag, alluding to the play’s theme of the romantic hunt). These dissonances all work well and build on a sense of doubleness.
It is a production with many tonal variations, from love sickness and romance to drunken revelry and the bitter aftertaste left by Malvolio’s cruel gulling, but all its parts are carefully entwined and contain an impeccable artistry.
• At the Globe theatre, London, until 30 October.