Twelfth Night: RSC at the Barbican

Sometimes a director tries too hard to bring a novel or unusual interpretation to Shakespeare’s work, producing a confused and ultimately unsatisfactory production. This unfortunately is the case with Prasanna Puwanarajah’s version of Twelfth Night for the Royal Shakespeare Company, recently transferred to the Barbican from Stratford.

There is much to like about this production. The acting was universally good and used Shakespeare’s words for the most part, only annotated with the occasional modernism, and the delivery of the lines made the story very easy to understand. Music is intrinsic to this play and the musical score produced by Matt Maltese was excellent. The costumes were eclectic, reflecting a modern era with one or two extraordinary exceptions such as Feste’s initial costume, which made him look like some sort of ersatz bumblebee.

However, there were far too many distractions presumably intended to either raise a laugh or simply for dramatic effect, rather than adding to the storytelling. There was also too much unnecessary flying of the characters: it was frankly ridiculous to have Malvolio descend off a fireman’s pole. And why were Feste and Fabian on ladders at the back of the stage painting the scenery most of the time?

Instead of seeking the comedy within the text of the play, the director chose to use the clown Feste, played Michael Grady-Hall as the main comic vehicle. While undoubtedly a talented actor with a lovely singing voice, his attempt to engage with the audience for laughs, pantomime style, was unsuccessful at press night, particularly in the first half. During the interval he resorted to the rather desperate device of throwing balls around the audience get more audience reaction.

Among a strong cast, the standout performance was Samuel West in the role of Malvolio. He gave a restrained authoritative performance as Olivia’s steward and delivered his admonishment to Toby Belch and his gang in as clear and incisive way as I have ever heard. His final words, after the reality of his cruel treatment was revealed, were addressed to the audience in a controlled way as a fitting rebuke to all those who seek entertainment from the discomfort of others. I also liked the ensemble as part of Orsino’s court. They were impeccably dressed and moved in complete consort, but why they all danced together in some sort of homoerotic pageant was beyond me.

The set was peculiar. It started as a large illuminated box through which Viola and the Captain appeared after the shipwreck. it was then replaced briefly by a flowery bank which was only used once for Feste’s first entrance and then became a large facsimile of a concert organ with a somnambulistic organist played by Tom Petty, hunched over the keyboard much of the time. 

I did not think this production fitted well onto the Barbican’s enormously wide stage. The absence of furniture meant that the characters were standing almost all the time in the middle of a great void, with large gaps all round and large spaces between them. While I have seen this space used very well for some of Shakespeare’s historic plays, for a more intimate production such as this one it dwarfed the actors. Maybe it worked better on the thrust stage at Stratford.

In the second half, the play was better and more genuinely funny, and the ending with the revealing of the twins, the pathos of the trickery played on Malvolio and the final lovely rendition of the “Hey, Ho, the Wind and the Rain” ballad by Feste, went some way to redeeming what was otherwise a disappointing production.

Playing until 17th January 2026, https://www.barbican.org.uk/

Reviewer: Paul Ackroyd

Reviewed: 16th December 2025

North West End UK Rating: