**** "The Unicorn Ensemble completes its first year’s work with this delightful, imaginatively staged version of Twelfth Night, piercing to the heart of the play’s beauty, melancholy and sexual ambiguity... The whole theatre, which has been reconfigured “in the round,” is used by an adept cast scurrying from scene to scene, character to character, without losing the narrative drift... Matthew Bailey's musical direction is first rate." Michael Coveney - Whatsonstage.com
"[The cast] flirt their way breathlessly through the maze of delusion, dipsomania and self-love. Easy laughter is taken to uproarious levels with carefully applied slapstick and comedy sword fighting." Ronnie Haydon - The Stage
The final production by the Unicorn Ensemble for 2008-9 sees the first staging of a Shakespeare play at the flagship children's theatre.
Shipwrecked and washed-up on the shores of Illyria, Viola disguises herself as the youth "Cesario", heads into town and gets a job with the Duke, Orsino. Her task is to persuade Olivia, the object of Orsino’s unrequited love, to marry the Duke. But instead, Olivia falls in love with "Cesario", and Viola falls in love with Orsino... And just when you think things couldn't get any more complicated. Viola’s twin brother Sebastian turns up in Illyria too…
In this multi-layered production, full of joy and brimming with energy, David doubles as Orsino the Duke and Sir Andrew Aguecheek as well as singing and playing classical & spanish guitar.
Twelfth Night is the first Unicorn production to be staged in the round and runs until 7th June 2009.
Links:
Unicorn Theatre Website
Twelfth Night Blog
Sir Toby Belch : Samantha Adams
Viola / Sebastian: John Cockerill
Olivia : Julie Hewlett
Malvolio / Antonio : Amit Sharma
Orsino / Sir Andrew : David Smith
Maria / Feste : Gehane Strehler
Director: Rosamunde Hutt
Movement Director: Lawrence Evans
Composer/MD: Matthew Bailey
Guitar Arrangements/Additional Composition/Assistant MD: David Smith
Designer: Lou Wilson
Lighting: Anna Watson
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