TWELFTH NIGHT/RICHARD III Apollo Theatre

The Apollo stage has been transformed into an Elizabethan hall such as Shakespeare’s own company might have acted in at the Inns of Court. Some members of the audience sit on stage. The house lights remain on in the auditorium throughout. The actors are in period costume and “perform”. There is no reality. Normally, the leading roles in Twelfth Night are Viola and Malvolio but in Tim Carroll’s all-male production, with Mark Rylance reprising the hilarious performance he gave at Shakespeare’s Globe in 2004, it is Olivia who holds centre stage. No actor in living memory has found so much comedy in the role. White-faced, with jet black wig, a coronet perched on his head, and dressed in deepest mourning, he seems to glide over the stage as if he were on castors. Olivia looks and behaves like a dignified lady until she falls head over heels in love and cannot hide her fluttering emotions. Rylance’s comic invention and timing, verbally and physically, are a constant pleasure. Stephen Fry is utterly believable as Malvolio and speaks his lines intelligently, but he lacks comic invention and brings nothing over and beyond himself to the role. Paul Chahidi repeats his wonderfully funny performance as Maria – easily the funniest Maria I have seen. Since Samuel Barnett is in the company (and quite excellent as Queen Elizabeth in Richard III) why is he not cast as Viola rather than as Sebastian? Rylance’s highly original and extremely unlikely Richard engages fully with the audience, who hugely enjoy his outrageous villainy; but he cuts their laughter completely in the spine-chilling coronation scene when he is sitting on the throne and talking about murdering his wife whilst she is actually standing next to him.