Twelfth Night Or What You Will review – knockabout comedy eliminates the anguish

Globe theatre, LondonRobin Belfield’s staging of Shakespeare’s comedy has plenty of charm, but its darker undertones are glossed overIt is festival time in Illyria, with masked revelries alongside the music and song in Robin Belfield’s staging of Shakespeare’s comedy. A period-dress production with

Globe theatre, London
Robin Belfield’s staging of Shakespeare’s comedy has plenty of charm, but its darker undertones are glossed over

It is festival time in Illyria, with masked revelries alongside the music and song in Robin Belfield’s staging of Shakespeare’s comedy. A period-dress production with passing modern-day asides, it is extremely knockabout, steering away from the play’s anguished layers. That might be enough for a summer show, but it has little to add to Sean Holmes’s roisterous, post-pandemic romp of a Twelfth Night in 2021.

The dyspeptic crew comprising Sir Andrew Aguecheek (played by Ian Drysdale as a flouncy Oscar Wilde type), a Lady Belch (Jocelyn Jee Esien) and Maria (Alison Halstead) works well. But the angst around the central romances is swallowed up by laughter and lightness.