ORDER in a pizza, dance the conga, pour the tequila and what have you got?

A theatrical adaptation of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.

True enough this does not sound exactly like your average Jacobean experience but the Royal Shakespeare Company’s performance of Twelfth Night which recently toured to the Brewhouse Theatre did not altogether discard that poetic iambic pentameter in fact, they put the beat back into it.

Yes, this production certainly had rhythm after all, if music be the food of love play on.

The stage was littered with sound desks, microphones and every instrument imaginable from banjo to drum kit and upon entering the auditorium the audience were left wondering whether the cast had actually finished setting up. But the purpose of this chaotic musical array soon became clear as Shakespeare’s plot evolved and the drama was seamlessly intertwined with various sound effects and musical numbers including the side-splitting drunken catch sung by Sir Andrew and Sir Toby; a scene successful in both disturbing the peace of lady Olivia’s household and in reviving the raucous humour of a good Shakespeare comedy.

As well as being musical this production was dynamic, appealing to its audience of young and old.

Toby Belch’s tearing off of his costume down to a pair of boxer shorts and those infamous yellow stockings had the numerous school parties in hysterics with their teachers smiling through well-hidden horror and the intermingled concessions looking just a little hot as legs, chest and underwear was gradually exposed.

Thankfully the open-mouthed oldies were soon invited on stage amidst the action to be soothed with a tipple of tequila. From the hilarity of the party scene whereby a local pizza delivery man entered the auditorium to hand out large marguerites and the audience were encouraged to throw Velcro balls at Sir Andrew’s fluorescent, Velcro head to the subsequent emotional dialogue between Olivia and Viola, the production retained a beautiful sense of meta-theatre remaining true to Shakespeare’s original intentions, ‘I am not that I play.’ And so despite the highly successful contemporary twist which at one point had Sir Toby Belch peering at the technician’s laptop positioned upstage centre and muttering quizzically, ‘Facebook?’ the characters, plot and technique of this flamboyant interpretation remains essentially original, in every sense of the word.

Ultimately the RSC is saying what they say best. Come on people, try some Shakespeare.

By Helen Puddy.