Following last week’s visit to a fabulous production of
Twelfth Night, I was very intrigued to see this specially penned sequel by Glyn
Maxwell. Some of the cast reprised their roles from the Shakespeare play while
other actors, previously resigned to brave attempts at breathing life into
relatively minor characters, were given a real chance to show what they can do
with meatier parts. The conclusion of Twelfth Night saw curmudgeonly manservant
Malvolio (a splendid Matthew Rixon) swearing revenge on the perpetrators of his
ignominious fall from grace at the palace of the Lady Olivia (a regal Lorna
Beckett ). The story is picked up twelve years later, and nobody has seen or
heard from the man. Could he be the mysterious figure who rules the legendary
land of Moai? Duke Orsino certainly thinks so, and sends a rag-tag band of
clowns and assassins to ‘terminate’ him.
In one of the worst British summers on record it was,
unfortunately, inevitable that the heavens would open up at some point during
the evening, and so they did. The rattling of a heavy shower on the overhead
canopy protecting our seats managed to drown out precious minutes of dialogue
at one point, and it is to the actors’ credit that they soldiered on regardless
as many of the audience began chattering and loudly opening their umbrellas.
But the inclement weather could not dampen our spirits as director Robin
Norton-Hale gave us a sparkling evening of wit, song, and rib-tickling
tomfoolery. Haseeb Malik had previously been seen as Twelfth Night’s Sebastian,
and excelled here as bumbling, sharp-suited killer-for-hire Adrian. Tom Radford
reprising Orsino also seemed to relish a more expanded role, particularly in
scenes where he has a whale of a time disguised as a woman. Sarah Lambie is
cute as a button whilst scampering about as Coraline, an ‘actress’ who is also
Orsino’s ‘boy’ (it’s complicated, so don’t ask!). There is a lot of running
around in this production with several characters dashing in and out of the
playing area, mingling with the audience and strumming ukeles and mandolins at
the drop of a hat. The character of Malvolio is talked about a great deal, but
doesn’t really have a lot to do this time around. He is rather like Marlon
Brando’s crazed Colonel Kurtz in ‘Apocalypse Now’, in that his presence dominates
the proceedings, and the rather long wait to see the man heightens audience
anticipation. When we do meet him, he’s a mumbling, shuffling shadow of his
former self, and has fallen so far that he now commands our full sympathy.
Matthew Rixon is a fine actor, and skilfully plays Malvolio as a broken doll of
a man before seemingly recovering his wits late on. A special mention also for
Ellen O’Grady who plays the small role of Fabian in Twelfth Night, and here is
rather splendid as the enigmatic ‘Songbird’; dressed in a long shimmering
silver dress complete with Cleo Laine hairstyle, and charming the birds from
the Grosvenor Park trees. Chris Vincent also shines as the comic harbourmaster,
a right Northern jobsworth. Masters Are
You Mad is another triumph for Chester Performs in this their third summer
season in Grosvenor Park, and is an exciting, imaginative, beautifully staged,
and worthy successor to the bard’s original.
Originally published at www.thepublicreviews.com
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