Stage Dragon: Twelfth Night At Guildford Castle Grounds

Published on: 19 Jun, 2019
Updated on: 19 Jun, 2019

By Alice Fowler

Twelfth Night is perfectly suited to out-door theatre: a confection of mistaken identity, yearning and self-deception that plays out best in the gathering dusk.

Guildford Shakespeare Company’s Twelfth Night: Alex Scott Fairley, Emma Fenney and Isaac Stanmore. All pictures by Steve Porter.

The Guildford Shakespeare Company (GSC), back for its 14th open-air season, bring its trademark wit and energy to the production. From the moment Matt Pinches’ sea captain hauls the shipwrecked, shivering Viola on to the stage, we know we are in for a treat.

Adaptor and director Charlotte Conquest sets the play in the early 1950s, with the Castle Ground’s bandstand transformed into the Grand Hotel Illyria.

There is much fun to be had with a blue and white striped beach-hut which, as the drama unfolds, also functions as Malvolio’s prison.

Alex Scott Fairley, Isaac Stanmore, Matt Pinches and James Burton.

Guildford Borough Council’s corporate teal colour features prominently, from the paintwork of the bandstand to the paunch of Sir Toby Belch (Matt Pinches, in fine form as the alcoholic aristocrat). Whether this is chance, or sends some other message, is unclear.

Acting is superb in a production that sparkles with music, dance and humour.

Francesca Baker, a recent graduate from the Guildford School of Acting, shines as Viola, breathing freshness and clarity into her lines.

Rosalind Blessed as Feste.

Rosalind Blessed, daughter of GSC honorary patron Brian Blessed, oozes charisma as the fool, Feste, while Alex Scott Fairley avoids caricature in a nuanced performance as Sir Andrew Aguecheek.

Twelfth Night is the tale of twin brother and sister Sebastian and Viola, lost at sea when their ship is sunk, each believing the other dead.

Viola, disguised as a boy, arrives at the court of Orsino, Duke of Illyria, where she wins hearts – and confuses them, when her brother appears there too.

This conceit of mistaken identity only works if the actors playing them really do look alike. Francesca Baker as Viola and Isaac Stanmore as Sebastian are so facially similar that we really can believe that the Duke (Tom Richardson) and the countess Olivia (GSC co-founder Sarah Gobran) are taken in.

While lovers pine, the play’s other motif is revenge, as Sir Toby, Feste and Olivia’s maid Maria (Emma Fenney) get their own back on the vain and pompous steward, Malvolio.

James Burton, familiar to GSC audiences as the Mad Hatter, has great fun in yellow bodysuit and cross garters. In some productions, it is possible to feel real sympathy for Malvolio in his humiliation. Less so here, for it is hard to truly empathise with a man locked up in a beach-hut.

Twelfth Night is at Guildford Castle Grounds until June 29.

There is no better way to spend a summer’s evening in Guildford than watching the GSC, as the sun flickers through the trees and bird song mingles with the actors’ voices.

Performances continue for the rest of the month; after that, next stop for the GSC is The Merry Wives of Windsor at Guildford Model Engineering Society’s miniature railway in Stoke Park.