Director: Sean Holmes
Reviewer: Honour Bayes
“If music be the food of love, play on, Give me excess of it…” Raucous, irreverent, joyous and above all musical, Filter have certainly taken Shakespeare’s most famous line from Twelfth Night to heart. A play performed at a gig is how they describe it, and I couldn’t have put it better myself as Shakespeare’s most loved comedy is dragged to life and laughs in the middle of a space scattered with mics, tables full of props and recording instruments, flutes, trumpets, drums and wine bottles and is laced through with tub thumping tunes.
Filter have succeeded in cutting Shakespeare’s script drastically whilst retaining the essentials needed to tell the story of Viola, a young woman whom is shipwrecked on the
shores of Illyria and who, posing as a young man, begins to serve Duke Orsino with whom she falls in love. The Duke himself is in love with the grieving Lady Olivia, who in turn falls in love with the messenger Cesario (Viola in disguise). When Viola’s brother Sebastian appears on the scene even more confusion ensues concluding in a typically ‘all’s well that ends well’ fashion as Viola and the Duke are together and Olivia gets her Sebastian.Filter do not make life so easy on themselves however, and with one woman (an excellent Poppy Miller) playing both Viola and Sebastian, this tidy conclusion is subverted to have her literally being both man and woman, at one moment kissing Olivia and then the Duke. Although at times this is slightly confusing, Filter are clever enough to touch on all the necessary reference points for it not to matter and by having one actor play two sexes in the body of one person, they succeed in bringing the ideas of gender that Shakespeare plays with radically up-to-date.
This is no serious critique of Shakespeare however and it is all the better for it. Indeed the most important aspect of this production is the sheer enjoyment that is brought back to a text that is a ‘classic’ but also bawdy and funny story of love, mistaken identity and also mischief. From the off as we walk in and are confronted by a table of instruments and lounging actors, musicians and even a stage manger, it is clear that this is going to be no stuffy revision of this Elizabethan text. At once we begin with a boisterously jazzy number moving swiftly into an audience participation moment with Orsino saying stiltedly ‘If music be the food of…of….go on’ prompting us to shout ‘…love, play on!’ which in all happiness the whole company obliges to do, each playing an instrument or object, powering from one set piece to another and creating a sense of giddy complicity.
Using Shakespeare’s language and a sequence of thrilling jazzy, folk and country songs as a scaffold to hang their bawdy brilliance, Filter take us through the twists and turns of this play with an ingenuity and boldness that small children have and adults are jealous of. Whether it be the maliciously puritan Malvolio (whose degradation at the hands of the other’s trickery is truly inspiring), the sprightly Duke in the form of Jonathan Broadbent, the wise fool played beautifully by Gemma Saunders, Syreeta Kumar’s darkly sexy and proud Olivia, Poppy Miller’s androgynous twins or the subtlety of Oliver Dimsdale as the constantly drunk Sir Toby Belch, this is a superb cast, all at ease with themselves and the play. In the midst of all of the revelry of this truly celebratory Twelfth Night they manage to bring a tenderness and believability to key moments within the story and an underlying note of truth is ever present in this whirlwind tale.Ravishing songs, tender moments, dirty rock solos, the audience drinking tequila; there are so many truly delightful moments bursting through this piece that to mention all of them would turn this into an essay. Suffice it to say that in this panto season, Filter have created something which will bring all of the enjoyment of such fluffy stuff, whilst retaining the truth and brilliance of Shakespeare’s words and characters. With only a short run at the Tricycle, I recommend that you stop reading this review and go and buy a ticket now. It will absolutely be worth it.
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