Midsummer madness and seduction at Thames-side pub

Twelfth Night at the Isis Farmhouse, Iffley, Oxford
on June 9
Review by Jon Lewis

On a warm, still, hazy evening the folk song Cold, Haily,Windy Night, made famous by Steeleye Span and The Imagined Village, ripples through the Isis Farmhouse garden, a winter song played near midsummer. The song, performed by the cast in Half Cut Theatre’s one-act production of William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night throughout the performance, serves to contrast the chilly court of Olivia (Verity Kirk), in mourning for her brother, with the warmer environment of her suitor, the urbane music lover Orsino (George Readshaw). In the song, a trickster inveigles his way inside a house to seduce an innocent girl.Seductions also happen in Twelfth Night.

The cast begins by suggesting to the audience of about 300 that we may have forgotten what to do when watching a play in the company of others. They need not have worried: we remember to laugh, to empathise, to sing along, and to applaud.

The shipwrecked Viola (Francesca Baker), disguised as a boy, Cesario, is tasked with promoting Orsino’s cause but unintentionally seduces Olivia who falls for her. Viola develops a passion for Orsino and finds that he, too, is interested in her, but only as Cesario. Olivia believes she is successful in her seduction of Cesario, but she’s actually married Olivia’s identical, also shipwrecked twin, Sebastian (Baker, quickly reversing her jacket to switch roles).

Much of the dramatic tension comes from the baiting of Olivia’s upright, Brummie servant Malvolio (James Camp) by Olivia’s drunken hangers on, Sir Toby Belch (Alex Wilson) and Sir Andrew Aguecheek (Camp, donning a bright jacket), aided by Olivia’s sassy northern servant, Maria (Kirk, doubling) and the wandering musical fool Feste (actor-musician Grace Liston), instigator of all the folk songs in the production. The show’s brevity means that the cruelty Malvolio faces is less fierce, more a prank than a clash of ideologies.

The staging is simple with minimal props (designer, Roisin Martindale) – as if a travelling troupe in Shakespeare time has just decamped with all their belongings on a cart. No more is needed to revive the theatregoing spirit than to perform in this pub’s delightful Thames-side garden.