Review: Twelfth Night, CAST, Doncaster

If Fellowes flops, then Filter Theatre’s anarchic re-telling of the Bard’s Twelfth Night is a runaway success, nothing short of a rollercoaster ride that directly challenges theatrical conventions and which refuses to compromise, but which never runs out of steam.

Told without interval, this is a bewildering, admirable melee of mime, sound effects, music, slapstick, defiance, audience participation, and at one point, there’s a bizarre pizza delivery and later, a few shots of Tequila to wash down the pasta. By the time you’ve worked out why, the moment is over and we have moved on. Frenzied it may be but it never loses its moments of poignancy, and for all the clamour, this hugely enjoyable account by co-directors and performers Oliver Dimsdale and Ferdy Roberts remains relatively loyal to the original story of mistaken identities and humiliations. I doubt that anyone will have seen a Malvolio with a wobbly tummy and wearing nothing else but socks and gold lycra hotpants, but here’s your opportunity to admire Fergus O’Donnell’s account of the role, and when he tells us that he will be “revenged”, there’s no doubting that, at some future point, someone is going to get it right in the neck.

Forcibly and possibly fatally. Making him look completely ludicrous as he says the line is a stroke of genius. Filter may be small in number, but the limitless energy they bring to the stage is impressive. If you are looking for a staidly conventional evening, then check in your preconceptions at the door, and to submit to just over ninety minutes that resembles a Shakespeare with access to dreadlocks, and some impressive tattoos. Fizzing performance, that uses your imagination.

To Oct19, Hull Truck Theatre, Nov 12 -15.