Twelfth Night - RSC Winter 2017

Quite safe but wrong for other reasons. 

Sure this will be a marmite show with lots of people who love it, but for me it's got to radically rethink itself

Correct, the RSC has had numerous failures with this play - particularly bad was Sher playing Malvolio as a genuinely insane Greek Orthodox priest - during previews he realised it was a disaster but it was too late to do anything. Doran's with Richard Wilson was also an inexplicable total failure. Also the John Lithgow one. Trevor Nunn says it is an impossible play to cast in the theatre - but his film version was awful too. 

How was Adrian Edmondson ? He's not an actor at all really is he ?

I was also there last night and enjoyed it. It may not be the best version I've seen but within it's own parameters I think it works. I get the feeling that the RSC, having cast Kara Tointon and Adrian Edmondson, neither known for playing Shakespeare but very well known on TV, are hoping that people who wouldn't normally go to see a Shakespeare play will come to see this. It's a very populist approach and as near to a musical version you will get without actually turning it into a musical. There are two "new" songs in it which are alluded to in the play, Malvolio's "Please One and So Please All" and Feste's " Hey Robin, Jolly Robin". The original lyrics to these were discovered, familiar to Elizabethan audiences, and developed into fully-fledged musical numbers by Nigel Hess.

I saw the "Sher" production at the Barbican when John Carlisle had taken over, it was one of the first rsc plays i ever saw but it was good. Lithgow was v good in a poor production, i only went to see him. Thr Briers one i saw at the Riverside directed by Branagh is prob still the best.
Im going to this on 12th Night!

I didn't Edmundson was poor in the BBC War and Peace - certainly a lot better than I expected.

Me too! On both counts (although I sadly only saw the Briers on on telly - I had it on video for years and years.)

Briers one was indeed v special. Saw it and then yes, got the video. Difficult to say why it was so good- the winter setting, the cast, the acceptance of the dark side? Anyway, fond memory. Looking forward to RSC's this season though having to wait til February.

From what I remember (it was at the Riverside Studios wasn’t it) the stage area had no depth but was very wide, gave it a filmic quality. Anton Lesser at his best as Feste - I remember a moment where Feste realised long before anyone else, several scenes before the end, that Viola had a twin, a unique interpretation.

I saw Lesser play Hamlet around that time in the West End, Jonathan Miller production, set and costumes entirely monochrome.

I have Anton Lesser reading all the Shardlake books on cd, he's wonderful.

I have a real love hate relationship with Upstart Crow, but laughed out loud several times last night, especially with the Love Actually reference round the bed, and then the rather special actress playing Queen Elizabeth. That whole scene was rather brilliant, especially the 'ginge'. And I adore Paula Wilcox and Lisa Tarbuck. It won me over last night.

Chichester and Haymarket?

Anton's wasn't the only gorgeous voice in that production. What about Christopher Ravenscroft?

I may NOT be one of the leading theatre bloggers in the UK 😉 but I interviewed Kara Tointon and Ade Edmondson last week and thought my interview might be of interest to someone maybe...

www.talkstageytome.co.uk/2018/01/interview-kara-tointon-and-adrian.html

As far as the show goes, I really enjoyed it. It terms of themes and design it was such a contrast to the Rome season which just finished up in London. I liked the idea of setting this production in the Victorian Era too.