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 Shakespeare's Twelfth Night is seen by many as one of his lightest comedies. While the latest Tower production, directed by Emma Miles (with Feiyang Yang as Assistant Director), certainly delivers plenty of laughs it also reveals hidden nuances. The main story involves Viola (Bella Hornby), who is shipwrecked after a storm and washed up on the island of Illyria. Believing her twin brother Sebastian (Callum Smith) to have drowned, she disguises herself as a boy, Cesario, and finds work with Duke Orsino (Paul O'Dea) wooing Olivia (Sophie Platts-Martin). However, the plan backfires when Olivia, who has no feelings for Orsino, falls in love with her.
 Emma Miles has made two big changes from most other productions. The biggest of these is to leave the text largely intact - including a lot of the original jokes. While it does mean that the play runs slightly longer than usual, this is more than justified by the fact that it allows the various subplots, including the growing chemistry between Orsino and Viola, to emerge, adding additional detail and emotional weight to the play. Joël Cottrell as Feste, Sangita Modgil as Maria, Richard Hague as Sir Toby Belch and Matthew Ibbotson as Sir Andrew Aguecheek, are also able to take full advantage of the opportunities provided by keeping more of the dialogue.
 Another significant change is to change the sex of Olivia's steward Malvolio, who is tricked into believing that Olivia loves her, from male to female – turning the character into Malvolia (Ruth Sullivan). Again, this could have backfired by adding another layer of confusion to the mistaken identities that run through the heart of the play. However, Ruth Sullivan is up to the challenge making her character stiff, repressed and pompous, while adding a degree of pathos that is absent from more traditional interpretations of Olivia's steward.
 Rob Hebblethwaite and Jessa Evans deserve credit for a set that evokes a beach resort, while Laura Fuchs and Lynda Twidale provide an eclectic mix of costumes that underline the personalities of each character. These range from a blazer and tweeds for Sullivan's Malvolia to a biker jacket for Hague's Belch. Tamara Douglas-Morris also provides the original music for Cottrell's Feste. Other crew include Andy Peregrine as lighting design, Richard Hague as musical director, Laurence Tuerk as sound design and Richard Kirby as Fight Director.
Overall, this is an excellent production that is not only entertaining, but also explores some of the subplots ignored by more abridged productions.
Photography by Robert Piwko
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