Twelfth Night, A Company of Fools, Peter Symonds College (From Daily Echo)

Twelfth Night, A Company of Fools, Peter Symonds College

10:21am Thursday 20th December 2012 in Curtain Call By Ed Howson

SET in the stylish surroundings of a 1920s speakeasy, this Sixth Form students’ drama project not only showed how much fun can be had staging Shakespeare, but highlighted a multitude of young talent in a production of which all those concerned can be justifiably proud.

The mischievous team of drunken Sir Toby Belch (Tim Chapman), Sir Andrew ‘nice-but-dim’ Aguecheek (the wonderfully rubber- limbed Freddie Taylor), and the excellently pert Lydie Sheehan as Maria, moved the comedy forward at great pace, gulling Oscar Owen’s pompous, high camp Malvolio to great effect.

As shipwrecked Viola, Olivia Morris-Soper was perhaps a bit too casual at times in her disguise as Cesario, and Maisie Parker, as the statuesque Olivia occasionally too forceful.

However the style of the period shone through strongly, heightened by James Vail’s excellent settings of the play’s songs, sung in jazzy cabaret-style by Ellie Popham, accompanied by a first-rate nine-piece band.