REVIEW: Shakespeare's TWELFTH NIGHT at The Tabard Theatre 6 – 18 October 2025
‘bold and thoughtful’ ★★★★
This is a bold and thoughtful reading of Twelfth Night, with a barebones set, a cast as small as feasible, a savage but effective edit. Bill Alexander has adapted and directed it, and the results are impressive – a complicated Shakespearean romp coming home in a bit over an hour, with most of the substance of the play (an admittedly frothy play, but still…) presented to the world.
The company, Chronicle Theatre, has a brief of making Shakespeare accessible and presenting workshop productions in schools, and this version of Twelfth Night ticks those boxes with panache.
Some of the acting is as barebones as the design, but Jamie Newall makes Sir Andrew Aguecheek both funny and sympathetic, which is quite a feat, John McAndrew’s Calvinist Malvolio gets convincingly gulled into kinkiness, and Eliza Horn’s Olivia is all frost and hauteur until her heart is thawed by a beautiful boy. That the beautiful boy is in fact a beautiful girl is the heart of the play, and Ms. Horn brings the desire and the anguish home with delicate force.
The beautiful boy/girl is played by Martha Ibbotson, doubling as Viola and Viola’s brother Sebastian. Her performance elevates this production from worthy to terrific. Her anguish when the man she works for - and is in love with - thinks she’s a he and therefore not to be romanced, and the woman she’s tasked with romancing on the man’s behalf falls in love with her thinking she’s a boy, which will be awkward down the line, and everything would be resolved if her brother was around to take over the romancing of the drop dead gorgeous but female subject, and then he does turn up but now Martha Ibbotson has to play two different characters at the same time…. Well, it’s a big ask and she does it very, very well. The stage craft to get round the ‘two characters one actor’ dilemma is a touch anti- climactic, but it is a working solution in keeping with the production.
So – an excellent show for the accessibility/workshoppy/good for schools brief the company has set itself, a perfectly respectable reading of the play, a clutch of very well judged performances, and Martha Ibbotson knocking it out of the park.
An hour well spent.
TWELFTH NIGHT at The Tabard Theatre, Chiswick
BOX OFFICE https://tabard.ticketsolve.com/ticketbooth/shows/1173657791/events/428668629
Directed by Bill Alexander
Produced by Jonny Wiles
Chronicle Theatre Company
Cast: Martha Ibbotson, Jonny Wiles, Eliza Horn, John McAndrew, Rez Kabir, Mary Chater, Robert Bouvier and Jamie Newall.
Creatives:
Lucy Fowler as set and costume designer
Beth Qualter Buncall as costume supervisor
Sarah Sayeed as sound and music designer
Rajiv Pattani as lighting designer
Stefano Guerriero as stage manager
Martha Ibbotson as fight choreographer
Michela Riccardi as marketing manager
Collette Parker as production manager
Stefano Guerriero and Frida Cæcilia Rødbroe as covers.
Photography: Simon Annand
