Fresh and enthusiastic all-make Shakespeare

AS a latecomer to Propeller’s all-male Shakespeare, I’m now the staunchest of converts. The efficiency with which the cast tell a complex story, clever cutting of well-known texts that could whiff of sacrilege, and this, one of his best-loved plays, was literally smoke and mirrors.

On the set, constructed of incredibly versatile walk-through wardrobes, every flat surface gleamed with reflections that threw you off balance and hid the truth. ‘Disguise’ and mistaken identity rule the plot.

Twins Sebastian (Dan Wheeler) and Viola (Joseph Chance) each presume the other dead in a shipwreck off Illyria. Both find their way to lovesick Duke Orsino. Viola disguises herself as a boy, Cesario, and become Orsino’s ambassador to Olivia (Ben Allen). Viola makes a very pretty boy and Olivia duly falls for him. The mischief-makers, Feste the jester (Liam O’Brien), Sir Toby Belch (Vince Leigh), her maid Maria (Gary Shelford) and Sir Andrew Aguecheek (John Dougall) hatch a plot to drive pompous steward Malvolio (Chris Myles) mad. Their torture of him casts a shadow over a mostly merry play.

The mischief scenes were wonderful and fresh – particularly the drunken revelry that included an enthusiastic if non-too-accurate version of Twelve Days of Christmas.

Inevitably twin Sebastian arrives in town and is mistaken for Cesario in his fight with Andrew Aguecheek and, potentially more disastrously, by Olivia - who marries him.

Propeller chooses its casts to include wonderful on-stage music – playing and singing – all wonderful. Propeller lives up to expectation, so far as I’m concerned, in the artistic jet stream. Find it and go.

Jane Howard