Review

Some dear friends of mine recently moved to Ludlow, and as a surprise they’d bought tickets to see some live theatre. Saturday night was at the superbly appointed Assembly Rooms, in a secondary space with room for maybe towards 100 people in cabaret seating, while Friday night was in, of all places, a working Brewery!

This was a production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night by a group called Rooftop. Rooftop are a professional group but they use amateurs as well. There was a local teacher, for example (Kate Thomson as Viola. She was rather good, too.) I’m told they do all their productions in the brewery. It may sound a strange choice; certainly, I’ve never seen theatre in a setting like that before. But it worked very well. The actors didn’t only use the floor space; at times they used a raised metal gantry, which I thought a fun touch. Indeed, I’d have liked to see them use even more of the space, though the complexity of how to do that could well have been too bewildering, even in terms of access for actors; I don’t know.

The play itself was cut to being shorter than normal. It showed a little – to both good and bad. The production raced along at a good lick. The energy was high and, in many ways, this was Shakespeare as it needs to be for a modern audience. The physical stagecraft had a very ‘free’ feel to it, though sometimes it became so free it seemed almost off balance and with many a shuffled foot on a noisy floor. That, though, was a small price to pay for such an energised performance.

In my opinion, though, a couple of difficulties emerged from the restructure of the play. Some parts were removed or merged with others (often a good thing with Shakespeare, but sometimes muddying the clarity of secondary characters.) Malvolio, for example, a character that for me the entire play revolves around, even if that was not Shakespeare’s intent, seemed somewhat diminished, to a point of being brought back to a level with the other principal characters, this even though he was portrayed by a pro actor (and director), Paul Sayers, who obviously knows his stuff. All opinion, of course, but for me a bit of a loss.

On the very positive side, though, another of the professionals, Simon Bolton – the other director - played Olivia as I have never seen her before. There was a manic energy in her that could have been too much, excepting that, now and then, there were glimpses of real tenderness in the depths. It was a fine performance, blustery and yet emotionally touching. I would love to see this actor performing a quiet and tender role.

The main take-away from this, though, was the fun. Maria (Robert Payne) was a surly and deadpan thug of a (bearded) character – just delightful, with such a natural way of voicing the archaic language so to be perfectly clear to modern ears. Rooftop really understand how to play with and twist Shakespeare and find genuine laughs within, from freshly imagined context, complete with danced disco numbers, through to gender-swapped characters that leapt over the risk of cliché and into the delight of joyous nonsense within the play itself. A fun evening!

Steve Stratton