Frights and delights on Liverpool's big night: QUENTIN LETTS reviews Twelfth Night

Twelfth Night (Liverpool Everyman)

Rating:
Verdict: A welcome return
Liverpool's Everyman theatre has reopened after a refit costing £27 million and it looks terrific. North-West England’s greatest city again has a major, high-minded stage.
Artistic director Gemma Bodinetz’s Twelfth Night, which gets off to an innovative start, lasts almost three and a half hours. Thank goodness the new seats are comfortable. Several passages, not least the goofing between Sir Toby Belch (Matthew Kelly) and the lighter people, need to be slashed.
The staging is broad and light, the theatre’s old brickwork, pine floor and high ceiling calling to mind a grand barn for the scenes in Orsino’s and later Olivia’s houses. Potted orchids descend to add a bucolic touch.

Singing on the stage: Matthew Kelly as Sir Toby Belch, Paul Duckworth as jester Feste and Adam Keast as Sir Toby's drinking friend Sir Andrew Aguecheek

When we first see Viola (Jodie McNee) her teeth are chattering from the shipwreck. Good touch.

Miss McNee makes a reasonably convincing Teddy Boy as the disguised Cesario and she sings sweetly — there is much music in this Twelfth Night, as is only right. I could have done with a little more honey and softness, or maybe a little less feyness from her twin brother Sebastian (Luke Jerdy).
Orsino (Adam Levy), in a white suit possibly borrowed from the man from Del Monte, gives us an idea of romantic impatience. Sir Toby wears a corduroy suit and orange beret. His drinking friend Sir Andrew Aguecheek (Adam Keast), far from being the beanpole we are told to expect, is a shortie with horn curls.
This production has some fine points, among them Natalie Dew’s touching Olivia and a convincingly pathetic Malvolio (Nicholas Woodeson). He divides his line ‘I’ll be revenged — on the whole pack of you!’, reserving the second part until he reaches his exit via the auditorium. This is the moment of the night.
Mr Woodeson also wins a chuckle of recognition from the Merseyside audience when Malvolio is caught poshing up his Northern vowels.
Less successful, I fear, is the decision to turn the jester Feste (Paul Duckworth) into a Lily Savage figure with hairnet, lipstick and transvestite’s high heels. Was it done to assert the theatre’s regional identity? Bigger horizons, please.
Much as one warms to Mr Kelly as a national delight, his determination to pop his eyes and gas with laughter every moment of every scene becomes wearisome. The Sir Toby/Sir Andrew axis is usually better done. Pauline Daniels’s Maria nearly ruins the finale with ‘oops, naughty me’ grimaces as Malvolio’s downfall is explained.
If I sound pernickety it is because the Everyman, having returned to British cultural life in fine physical fettle, deserves to be judged seriously. Though this Twelfth Night is not perfect, it has enough flair to make a respectable curtain-raiser.