Camden review: Theatre | Twelfth Night | Regent's Park Open Air Theatre | Clive Rowe

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The Review - THEATRE by SAM JONES
Published: 17 July 2008

The Bard still reigns in Regent's Park affair

TWELFTH NIGHT
Regent's Park Open Air

TWELFTH Night is not one of my favourite Shakespeare plays. The productions I have seen have felt lost – invariably diving into chaos or becoming self-absorbed in the poetry.
This production was in danger of losing itself in a rambling first half.
A featureless brick and shutter façade of a set and 1930s-style costumes seemed to add to a rather pedestrian start.
Perhaps that Gosford Park feel of bodies moving to and fro as the plot is laid and the suspense built was part of the idea.
Nonetheless, it was watchable, with Clive Rowe’s Feste and Clive Hayward’s Aguecheek providing comedy highlights.
Clive Rowe is an interesting choice. Famous as the Hackney Empire’s stalwart pantomime dame, what his programme biography omits is that he has already picked up an Olivier award more than a decade ago for his work.
The improved second half, then, is quite dominated by his presence and superb voice; he holds much of the post interval action on his own shoulders.
Janie Dee emerges from behind her veil as the countess Olivia to give us a good comic glimpse of those twinkly eyes and, as the mistaken identity plot moves up a gear, so does the production.
The second half is intrinsically faster moving, but the cast suddenly seem to have much more fun and be far more relaxed and amusing with it.
A good production, worth a look, but children need to love both the Bard and the atmosphere to last the two hours and forty-five minutes’ duration.
In rep, until July 30
0844 826 4242

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