Hannah saves the day for Twelfth Night – Review by Julia Gasper

THE Oxford Shakespeare Company was about to stage its new production of Shakespeare?s Twelfth Night, one of his most uproarious comedies, when their leading actress, Claire Cordier, was carried off to hospital with appendicitis!
This happened four days before the show was due to open. With amazing luck, they managed to get hold of a substitute, Hannah Boyd, who not only knows the part but was free to step in at hyper-short notice.

You would never guess this watching the production today, on its first night at Wadham College gardens. Hannah is a really admirable Viola, and a perfectly self-possessed heroine, sporting her doublet and hose with androgynous panache. There was no time to take Claire?s picture out of the programme and put in Hannah?s.

Oliver Gartside, who acts Viola?s identical twin brother, Sebastian, commented that it was odd for him to find himself opposite a different actress at the last moment, but Hannah had worked really hard to master the different cuts in this production and familiarize herself with everything going on ? all in three days!

The director, Bill Bankes-Jones, must be immensely relieved that they found her and that the production could open as planned without most of the audience even being aware of the near-catastrophe.

This is an extremely funny production, with a sea-side theme, and a lot of tomfoolery in every Act. Its light-hearted use of props such as Punch and Judy puppets, rubber rings and plastic cricket bats adds a touch of surreal farce and sheer zaniness. Tom Walker as the clown Feste and Dafydd Gwyn Howells as the self-indulgent Sir Toby Belch are a well-matched pair, both very talented and funny in different ways. Feste?s Elvis impression when he sings ?Oh mistress mine? is priceless, and Sir Toby?s management of the mock-duel between Viola and poor little Sir Andrew Aguecheek is done very well.

James Lavender is brilliant as Malvolio, the pompous, priggish steward, who gets his come-uppance. He starts off dressed as an undertaker, then re-appears in the middle of the night dressed in striped pyjamas and a hair-net. After reading the forged letter, and falling for the trick played on him, he appears in?well, I won?t spoil it for anyone by telling them in advance exactly what Malvolio is wearing when he comes forth, convinced that Olivia is madly in love with him and wants to marry him, but I promise you it is hilarious. In this production, certain details have been altered, in order to make Malvolio even less likeable and maximize the impression that he is ?sick of self-love?.

It is understandable that Bill Bankes-Jones wanted to make these surreptitious changes, because otherwise it may seem that the joke that Sir Toby and Maria play on him really goes a bit too far. However, when Feste dresses up as a Deep South preacher to visit Malvolio, who is locked in a beach bathing-hut, we are too busy laughing to have much concern for that.

In keeping with the sea-side theme, Count Orsino wears Bermuda shorts and a dressing-gown, not a very flattering garb, and he does not seem so irresistible that Viola would have fallen madly in love with him at first sight

Twelfth Night continues at Wadham College Gardens, Oxford until 1st August 2008.

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