‘Joyous’ or ‘empty’?

Shakespeare’s Globe

Carnival’ and ‘carnivalesque’ were words that cropped up frequently in reviews of Twelfth Night at The Globe. However there were contrasting views on Robin Belfield’s production (‘joyous’ vs ‘empty’, ‘strongest rapport with an audience’ vs ‘may try a little too hard to engage the crowd’), the performances (Ronkẹ Adékọluẹ́jọ́ as Viola gives a ‘delicious central performance’ or needs to play the part  ‘with more depth’), and the design. Take from them what you will.

[Links to full reviews are included but a number are behind paywalls and therefore may not be accessible]

4 stars ★★★★

There was a rare but welcome review from Dzifa Benson in the Telegraph. With her usual perspicacity she analysed the gender themes of the play and how the production exploits them before praising the actors and concluding: ‘this summer jamboree is riotous fun and joyfully tongue-in-cheek’.

Rachel Halliburton for The Times liked the way ‘in Robin Belfield’s joyous, kaleidoscopically coloured production, Quigley makes (Malvolio’s) humiliation in love every bit as resonant as the gender-swapping romances of the main characters.’ She said: ‘Amid the prevailing colourful whirligig, this is the production’s darkly beating heart.’

Dave Fargnoli for The Stage stated: ‘Belfield’s production never lets us forget that a dangerous current of lust and cruelty lurks beneath the whimsical frivolity.’ He was not alone in praising the design: ‘The bold aesthetics of Jean Chan’s gorgeous costumes are integral to evoking the play’s weird world and marking shifts in the characters’ emotional states.’

The Standard’s Nick Curtis said: ‘Inclusion and exclusion are the keynotes of Robin Belfield’s carnivalesque production of Shakespeare’s play, which features a delicious central performance from as Viola. The cast build what’s possibly the strongest rapport with an audience that I’ve ever felt at the Globe and the comedy is delightfully on point.’

3 stars

Matt Wolf for LondonTheatre disagreed with The Standard (above) about Ronkẹ Adékọluẹ́jọ́, finding that ‘this fine performer only intermittently lands the passion and pathos that help drive the play forward’. He also disagreed about the rapport with the audience: ‘The production may try a little too hard to engage the crowd in a vapid clap-along’. However he was impressed by ‘Jos Vantyler’s beautifully spoken (and danced), Harlequinade-adjacent Feste’ who ‘steers an expert course through the contrasting shores of the sublime and the sad between which this play navigates.’

Time Out’s Andrzej Lukowski was unimpressed: ‘Robin Belfield’s production falls into a very Globe-ish trap of having a lot of fun individual turns but failing to really cohere into a whole that makes much sense. And the lack of set changes leaves it without any sense of place, just groups of characters mucking about in front of Jean Chan’s unhelpfully abstract sun-ray set design.’

Clementine Scott for BroadwayWorld felt ‘Belfield’s direction too often allows the complex, gender-bending love triangle between Viola (in disguise as ‘Cesario’), Olivia and Orsino to play second fiddle to the Saturnalian slapstick.’ To support this view, she pointed out: ‘it’s a shame that our audience avatar, Viola (Ronkẹ Adékọluẹ́jọ), the only character who’s experiencing this fantasy world for the first time alongside us, isn’t played with more depth.’ She conceded: ‘This production might not probe Twelfth Night’s nuances as far as it could, but even the most hardened critic can’t resist the serotonin hit.’

2 stars ★

The Guardian’s Arifa Akbar summed up: ‘A period-dress production with passing modern-day asides, it is extremely knockabout, steering away from the play’s anguished layers.’ She explained: ‘You do not feel the pangs of unrequited desire, and much of the verse is dampened by unremarkable delivery in general.’ For her, Malvolio was ‘ almost loveably crabby’ and his ‘gulling never enters the realm of the tragic’. It was, she said, ‘a baggy production whose japery spills into messiness, leaving some plot points opaque.’

Alun Hood at WhatsOnStage was disappointed: ‘Belfield certainly rips through the play with commendable pace and attack, but the overall lack of subtlety or real emotion robs this entrancing comedy of much of its magic. When the majority of the characters are reduced to clownish ciphers, it’s pretty hard to care about them and that ultimately renders this Twelfth Night, for all its freewheeling irreverence and high energy revelry, a disappointingly empty experience.’

Critics’ average rating 3.2★

Twelfth Night can be seen at Shakespeare’s Globe until 25 October 2025. Buy tickets directly from shakespearesglobe.com