Ah well... 2008 is all over bar the drinking as I have been to my last theatre outing!

Step forward William Shakespeare... You ushered in the year with MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING and you saw it out with TWELFTH NIGHT at the Wyndhams as part of the Donmar in the West End season.

Michael Grandage has had a great year with his sold-out productions of IVANOV, THE CHALK GARDEN, OTHELLO and PIAF and TWELFTH NIGHT is continuing that success.
Shakespeare's romantic comedy of love and confused identities belies it's 407 years and continues to provoke laughs as Viola, shipwrecked on the shores of Illyria, disguises herself as a young man Cesario and is soon employed by Count Orsino to woo Olivia, a titled woman who mourns her dead father and brother and refuses Orsino's advances.
Olivia, far from being an ice maiden is soon in love... with Cesario. Further confusion spins the plot along with Viola falling in love with Orsino and Olivia's pompous and puritanical steward Malvolio being tricked into believing that she is secretly in love with him. When Viola's identical brother Sebastian appears after surviving the same shipwreck as his sister, the scene is set for happy endings for all... except one.

The one thing I felt was missing from Grandage's production was any feeling of sexual ambiguity. Veronica Hamilton - with her honeyed Jean Simmons voice - at no time suggested a boy, a Principal Boy maybe but not a boy. But I enjoyed her performance, she spoke the text with a real intellegence. Indira Varma also made a great Olivia, langorous and mocking at first but melting with love for Cesario, she also had a nice bit of business when yelping with erotic delight when confronted by both Sebastian and Viola. The feeling that the darker elements of the play were brushed over was also felt in the character of Antonio who frequently voices his love for Sebastian, enough to make him put his life in danger by returning to Illyria where he is suspected of piracy.
Ron Cook and Guy Henry made a great little & large comedy team as Sir Toby and Sir Andrew and they were matched by Samantha Spiro's fiesty Maria. For once the sub-plot characters didn't outstay their welcome, but it helped that they shared the story with Derek Jacobi's sublime Malvolio.

Shadowing Olivia in his black suit and wing-collar he was the essence of disdainful superiority to his lessers and unctious civility to his lady and Jacobi succeeded in making him the centrepiece of the production.

The letter-reading scene where Malvolio is tricked into believing Olivia loves him was a masterclass in high comedy - even going so far as to suggest Frankie Howerd in his outrageous response to the double-entendre "and thus makes she her great P's"! His painful efforts in keeping a smile on his face, his revelling in his soon-to-be exhaulted state and his boastful walk wearing his outlandish blazer, shorts and yellow socks was comic gold. But he also made you feel for Malvolio when, as the couples are celebrating at the end, he appears among them, angry at being locked in an asylum. His parting lines "I'll be revenged.... on the whole pack of you" guaranteed not everyone would live happily ever after.

It was definitely a good way to end a year of quality theatregoing. More on that later in the week!