Twelfth Night
Bristol Old Vic

WITH gender politics rarely out of the news, this highly topical exploration of Shakespeare’s play is set in a hippy, psychedelic house party where revellers extend their stay when they find a copy of Twelfth Night and decide to perform it.

With cross-gender casting, male roles adapted for females, cross-dressing and androgynous characterisations, director Wils Wilson bends the perspective on sexual orientation. Thus Viola’s identity issues no longer dominate the play but are merely one element in a kaleidoscope of challenges to gender binarism.

In the initial transformation of the spaced-out crowd, the cast shed their kaftans to adopt their self-chosen roles — Orsino and Sebastian are played by women, Sir Toby Belch becomes Lady Tobi, Feste appears in smocks and dresses while Olivia struts the stage in a power suit.

That challenge to established identities goes further with Dylan Read’s manic Feste wearing an oversized nappy, the identical twins played by cast members of different ethnicities and Christopher Green’s pompous Malvolio literally letting down his hair as he transforms from outraged steward in medal-bedecked black pyjamas to potential suitor in glam-rock mode.

Meilyr Jones’s score borrows from the 1960s and ’70s, with a range of traditional and unusual instruments adding to the laid-back atmosphere, while Jabares-Pita’s dilapidated country house, lost in a forest, has the same escapist air, enabling non-traditional entries and exits.

The cast savour Shakespeare’s lines and linger over their delivery, yet the production is not without its frenetic moments. Dawn Sievewright gives a bravura performance as a rowdy Lady Tobi, while Guy Hughes performance as the air-head Aguecheek, decked out in an Elvis-style white and glittery costume with matching platform boots comes into its own as a comic creation.

A highly visual production, remaining largely true to Shakespeare’s original text, it makes an interesting comparison to the musical adaptation currently at London’s Young Vic, whose settings, music, design and performance style are radically different.

Yet both productions are successful treatments of a Shakespeare comedy that remains fresh and relevant to modern audiences.

Runs until November 17, box office: bristololdvic.org.uk.