REVIEW: Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, jukebox musical at The Drayton Arms Theatre 1 - 26 September 2026

‘packed with versatility and talent, guided by a forward-thinking director’ ★★★★★

For anyone unfamiliar with the plot of Twelfth Night, it is the story of a near tragedy that gives new opportunities to the survivors. They have a chance to start again, a new life in a new country, it is a comedy and a love story with an unexpected ending. Viola, pretending to be a man seeking service in the court of Duke Orsino, falls for the imposing physique of her employer while on her mission to secure for him the hand of his love, the lady Olivia, who in turn ends up falling for Viola. The Duke himself puzzling all the time over why he is attracted to his new man-servant. Nothing much seems to be going right for anyone but it not a spoiler to say they all live happily ever after. Well, almost all of them.

So why another version of a 400+ year old play? You would have thought it would have been done to death by now. Well, for a start, like all of Shakespeare's plays, it's a good story. There is also always the argument that you have to introduce Shakespeare to people who don't know his plays. This then is a perfect introduction for the newcomer with its crisp editing and energetic delivery and its easy-to-follow storytelling. 

Of course, there is the temptation these days to exploit the gender-bender aspect of not just this play but several others in an effort to appear original or different. This idea has been carried into some of his works that hint at no such thing. Traditional genders of his plays, perhaps appearing somewhat of a novelty these days. Thankfully, the director has stuck for the most part to the original men as men, women as women and looked elsewhere for a unique selling point.

This version is set in the 1970s with a prominent helping of retro garb and classic songs of the period. Most of these are in their original form but some are presented as karaoke sung by cast members. This has familiar tunes perfectly placed to punctuate with title or lyrics, the mood of the text at the chosen moment, hilarious characterisation, tacky, trendy, kitsch 1970s costumes which I'm sure some people back then thought were really cool - certainly a sentiment that came across strongly in this version through the portrayals of Sir Toby Belch, Sir Andrew and Fabian. The drink, the drugs, the womanising and the posing were all thrown in for good measure and added to the fun of the proceedings.

This is not the first Acting Gymnasium production to give the Globe a run for their money, and at a fraction of the cost without having to stand up all the way through it. For sheer originality, life, pace and clarity of storytelling, this beats recent offerings from the Globe hands down.

All this is greatly down to surgical editing of the original script, which delivers a very funny, (and I couldn't hear some lines because of the audience laughing), fun to watch adventure which is by far the best play I've seen this year and possibly (I can't think of another) one of the best placings of a Shakespeare play in a modern setting. The cinema equivalent might be Baz Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet?

Go and see it - and if "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" was ever your thing back in the day, you will probably find yourself getting up on your feet to get down with the cast on stage for the finale - so if that's your thing, then you simply can't miss this.

Unlike some recent west-end musicals, where I've heard it said that none of the songs was memorable, and the audience left the theatre with nothing to take home in the way of a tune they just couldn't stop singing, Twelfth Night gives you plenty to remember. Whether it is the delicately presented rendition of Abba's "The Winner Takes It All", movingly sung by Gulin Langbroek as Feste, as Viola stands downstage, pining over her unrequited love for the Duke; or the hilarious capers of Sir Toby Belch, reincarnated into a 70s medallion man, unashamedly strutting his stuff on the dance floor, while the series of rebuffs to his lecherous macho chat-up strategy have no penetration through his rhinoceros hide ego, all to the perfectly chosen anthem of T-Rex's "20th Century Boy". And there were plenty of others.

It may not all be Shakespeare, but it is Shakespeare in a modern setting. Admittedly, the songs were all big hits in their own right back in the day. So we have great writing and great music but surely the genius here is the director's editing of the script to two hours and the choice of which track to choose and exactly where to place it in the play. None of the music interrupted the flow of the story, quite the contrary, every song punctuated precisely what was going on when it accompanied a character's feelings or underlined the action onstage.

The casting too was clever. Having seen this group several times in the past and so being familiar with many of the cast members' abilities, it was impressive to see them now in extremely different roles to the ones I had seen them in before.

The original take on the part of Olivia by Prilly Lee was zany and bonkers but worked so well and added to the depth of variety of personalities on stage. Viola was expertly played by Molly Hockham, who displayed a measured amount of pathos, frustration and finally joy at the end of the play.

The whole disco dancefloor seemingly revolved around the towering figure of Charles Worthington as Duke Orsino in the opening number, a beacon in his John Travolta white suit. This displayed the unique characterisation of each player, presenting a dynamic overture of what was to come.

The supporting cast of James Wills, Rachael Sparkes, Emma Douse, Stephen Saintclair, Ilya Romanov, Ellie Baker and Nick Morris all stepped up to the mark in minor roles which all too often let the side down in fringe theatre productions. Here they were all exceptional and not a word was lost, or intention misconceived through lack of effort.

Olivier and Burton both played Othello and Sir Toby Belch, two roles that are worlds apart. That Aryan Chavda also took on both and performed both excellently well says much for his ability and talent.

Ellen Terry may have famously played Lady Macbeth but who would then cast her as Malvolio, belting out a pop song in a following performance. And as there was no pop music back in 1890, what then instead if popular songs of that era were from the music hall? The suggestion is absurd but in a different era with a different audience, Helen Probert has glided effortlessly from the vampish lunatic that was Lady Macbeth to the petulant fool Malvolio, bragging and brooding.

I'm not suggesting here that anyone performing in the Drayton Arms this week will go down in immortality but those who dared in the late 1800s will never be forgotten. After all, everyone knows of Oscar Wilde. Okay, so it's not the writing that is on show here either but a cast packed with versatility and talent and guided by a forward-thinking director is more than a breath of fresh air amongst a west-end theatre scene that has for too many decades now been mostly playing it safe.

TWELFTH NIGHT By William Shakespeare, Adapted and Directed by Gavin McAlinden   

Drayton Arms Theatre 1 – 26 September 2026

BOX OFFICE     https://www.thedraytonarmstheatre.co.uk/shakespeares-twelfth-night

CAST

Charles Worthington

Helen Probert

Aryan Chavda

Prilly Lee

Molly Hockham

CREATIVE TEAM

Director: Gavin McAlinden

Designer: Camille Godechoux

Lighting: Jonathan Simpson 

ASM/operator:  Ray Enion

Photography credit: Mandy Gasson