Review by Simon Jenner, August 21 2025
Illyria is Avenue Q. All sorts of square-headed hopeful monsters jump out garbed in technicolour. They’re partying like it’s January 5 with very midsummer madness. Directed by Robin Belfield till October 25, the Globe’s latest Twelfth Night, Or What You Will (subtitle compulsory here) it’s indeed a brightness meant to cast shadows.
Jean Chan’s vertical sun-burst design c.1920 doesn’t anchor us in that time or any other; though its striking bronze explosion sets prop echoes for a gorgeous look that’s a bit marooned. Costumes, predominantly bright green, purple, yellow and russet red are a riot against sumptuary laws as well as helpfully coding individuals. The shadows though. They’re mainly left to Pearce Quigley’s magnificent, even malodorant Malvolio. This two-hour-thirty production enjoys (like all the Globe’s this year) abundant energy; though pauses and eddies aren’t where you’d think.
Ronkẹ Adékọluẹ́jọ́ as Viola in Twelfth Night. Photo Credit:Helen Murray
That’s as willed by the sub-plotters, here given time enough to become the main interest. Sir Andrew Aguecheek (fopped deliciously by Ian Drysdale, though his “I was adored… once” doesn’t land slowly enough); a Lady Belch (Jocelyn Jee Esien, a bibulous lady of misrule, happiest coming-on to a bottle) and Maria (Alison Halstead with one of the finest voices and rationales of the evening) go to it. The real sexual chemistry threatens to be between these latter two: they’re certainly the happiest couple on stage. Emmy Stonelake makes far more of her Welsh Fabian too.
Belfield intercuts some scenes using the yard and platforms to have Viola (Ronkẹ Adékọluẹ́jọ́) ask of Joshua Johns’ multi-roling Sea Captain what country this is, only for her soon-to-crush-on Orsino (Solomon Israel) to break in with his introductory speech on the stage proper. Much more is made of Max Keeble’s fine Antonio: his noble love for Sebastian (Kwami Odoom) is flirtatiously answered with a snog. Sebastian, a bit like Bassanio with that other Antonio, seems to swing where convenient. Odoom’s strong-voiced Sebastian does redeem himself with a warm recognition of the beleaguered Antonio later, but the latter is then disappeared. No ingenious twists as for instance in Sean Homes’ Merry Wives. You somehow feel here that Belfield toys with different endings then leaves them to Shakespeare. There’s plenty that might have been done without words though.
Sebastian’s official if bemused love-interest Olivia (Laura Hanna) is played with mischievous regality and a touch of licence. Increasingly out of control and her class sphere, Olivia’s pursuit of Viola/Cesario is all strain, circumscribed by fractured decorum. Her relationship with a dancing/singing Feste (Jos Vantler) though is anything but. She kisses this handsome commanding and clear-voiced “allowed fool” with the licence he brings. It’s taking that licence to logical conclusion: pet, adored inferior or younger sibling, it brings in the seasons’ inverted revelry.
Vantler leads the audience and sings Simon Slater’s Spanish-inflected melodies with cut-through grace and a touch of dark around his fiery gaiety. Vantler’s one of the highlights and draws stage energy and rationale, so we begin to see the silliness through his eyes. The instrumental quintet partly descend and make the settings a highlight.
Ronkẹ Adékọluẹ́jọ́ as Viola and Laura Hanna as Olivia in Twelfth Night. Photo Credit:Helen Murray
Hanna and Odoom brew a flickering chemistry when together; and there’s at least believable resemblance (unlike some productions) between him and Adékọluẹ́jọ́ – both with height and hair. Their eventual reunion’s exuberant but with none of the devastating recognition between Michele Terry and George Fouracres in the 2021 production here, directed by Sean Holmes, which was special, Unravelling here though is eminently clear.
There’s little time for the confused desire of Israel’s Orsino to land. Adékọluẹ́jọ́ is agile and appealing though the affect and plangency of both seem muted. The subplot sucks time and energy from it, as if that’s what we’re meant to believe in.
Quigley’s Malvolio is played as if his Jacques here of a few years ago has returned fuller-bearded from the forest; with misanthropy blossomed into puritanism with a Lancastrian monotone. Guyed by absurdity (in a bed sock, pulling his teddy-bear apart) Quigley delivers everything down-at-voice. Add a fixed smile and Quigley becomes incomprehensible which adds to Malvolio’s plight. Malvolio’s sexual faux-pas and later beshitten state under a curious corn doll’s head (bar its colour, it makes no sense thrust underneath the bronze sun) is a set-piece of hilarity and pathos. No-one “Ahhs” when Drysdale’s excellent Aguecheek misses that bite of “adored… once”; but Quigley’s exit gets the deepest response of the evening. This is what we came for, though we didn’t know it, and much of the production doesn’t either.
There’s some characterful work in Henry Jenkins’s shuttlecock messengers Valentine, and Aarushi Ganju’s Curio; though Orsino’s court is more spectacle than a palace of sighs. An inside-out Twelfth Night is in keeping with the play’s spirit, but What You Will as indicated could have been much more; and with a quartet of more shadowed lovers. It is though the most exuberant Shakespeare out there, and a summer last-blast to make Malvolio weep.
Musicians: Composer Simon Slater, MD/Percussion Louise Duggan, Woodwind Melanie Henry, Bass Trombone/Tuba Richard Henry, Guitar/Banjo Rob Updegraff, Trumpet Adrian Woodwind till August 22nd, Miguel Gorodi from August 24th)
Movement& Intimacy Director Ingrid Mackinnon, Fight Director Paul Benzing
Costume Supervisor Lydia Hardiman, Voice and Text Consultant Ellen Hartley
Stage Manger Carol Pestridge, DSM Kit Fowler, ASM Alika Rees, Stage Management Placement Izzy Cox,
Globe Associate – Movement Glynn MacDonald, Head of Voice Tess Dignan, Head of Production Wills, Head of Stage Bryan Paterson, Head of Wigs, Hair and Make-up Gilly Church, Head of Wardrobe Emma Lucy-Hughes, Head of Company Management Marion Marrs, Head of Props Emma Hughes, Casting Becky Paris CDG. Producer Ellie James.
The Company. Photo Credit:Helen Murray
