★★★★

“There are many moments of light and silliness in this production”

When Feste – the fool attached to Olivia’s household – hangs upside down from the rafters, crooning as though in an after-hours jazz club; while Orsino is draped across a grand piano ten feet below him, you know you’re in for a “Twelfth Night” with a difference. Feste is less the sword of Damocles, but more Cupid’s arrow, if only he wouldn’t spend so much time clowning around. Played by Michael Grady-Hall, he weaves himself in and out of each of the play’s storylines as though he’s at the circus. Even during the interval, he plays Catch with the audience.

Yet he stops short of making this the ‘Feste Show’. Directed by Prasanna Puwanarajah, this eccentrically stylised production reveals how strong an ensemble piece it is. While Feste feels the need to fix everyone’s problems, they all seem to be getting on with it fine anyway. And relishing the opportunity. The sense of mourning and melancholy that introduces the story is reliant on the music more than the characters. Whether it is composer Matt Maltese’s jazzy piano accompaniments or the imposing pipe organ that periodically dominates James Cotterill’s outlandish sets, the tunes and refrains are what trigger the emotions. Ragtime accompanies the boisterous, boozy, behind-the-scenes shenanigans of Sir Toby and company. The same melody, slowed down for the organ, reflects the themes of lost and confused love that the protagonists are grappling with.

Daniel Monks’ Orsino is a velvet-clad playboy. A bachelor who prefers others to do his lustful bidding for him. Continually rejected by Olivia, his heart’s desire, he conveys a parallel growing affection for Cesario, his newly acquired manservant (the shipwrecked Viola in disguise). The same homoeroticism is more than hinted at between Olivia and Cesario/Viola. Gwyneth Keyworth embraces Olivia’s contradictions: resilient and practical yet vulnerable and easily infatuated. Continually dropping hints that he/she isn’t who she really is, Olivia pursues him/her anyway, perhaps not really caring too much about the gender. Freema Agyeman is a striking and versatile Olivia. Forcefully charismatic and sultry, and also playfully swinging between offended gravitas and excited sensuality.

Samuel West shines as Malvolio, austere one moment until duped into shaking his tail feathers for Olivia. Hilarious in his stockings, garters and broad smile. Yet when the game is up, his final exit is ultimately moving. Joplin Sibtain’s Sir Toby Belch is like an untrained hound while Danielle Henry’s Maria is his handler. As Sir Andrew Aguecheek, Demetri Goritsas is an all-shook-up, Americanised mix of Stan Laurel and Hugh Laurie.

Puwanarajah’s playful approach often detracts from the true emotion, but our attention never wanders and, among the mix of styles, small details are mischievously slipped in – like “Chekhov’s tramp”. A wandering vagrant or police officer may cross the stage for no apparent reason. A painter and decorator will be seen working away on nobody-knows-what. There are many moments of light and silliness in this production. It is a play that sets out amid grief, mourning and tragedy on its stylish journey towards celebration and unity, with some unexpected steps on the way. Occasional ad-libbing, along with scripted anachronisms, reference the festive season. We leave the theatre with a warm spring in our step. A joyous and heart-tugging production.

THE SECRET GARDEN at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre

★★★

“With a strong ensemble cast directed tightly by Anna Himali Howard the first act was a delight”

A normal child would cry but Mary Lennox is not a “normal child” as we discover in Frances Hodgson Burnett’s classic children’s novel, The Secret Garden, in this new stage version by Holly Robinson and Anna Himali Howard.

1903 during the British Raj, is where we meet the 10-year-old Mary, ignored by her glittering parents; as her Indian mother and British army father party hard, living their colonial life – and literally dying overnight as they chose to ignore the “unimportant” servants dying of the cholera spreading through their house.

The orphaned Mary is unceremoniously shipped to England to live in her uncle’s stately home on the Yorkshire Moors. A broken-hearted house that is full of secrets, which the staff are not very good at keeping hidden from the tenacious and contrary Mary.

Left to make her own entertainment, Mary discovers a secret garden with the help of a friendly robin. Overgrown and unloved for years, it is a forbidden garden. And so, begins the enduring tale of broken hearts healed through nature as all learn how, with the right tending and care, they can bloom and be loved, like the garden.

In what should have been the perfect setting for The Secret Garden, in the open air with nature all around, the production does not deliver on the expected magic as the secret garden grows and thrives – and does not use the natural setting.

The set designed by Leslie Travers starts off so beautifully but by the time the clunky dark earth filled empty flower beds on squeaking iron wheels are pushed onstage; and seeing the not-disabled friendly secret door into the garden fail to fit Colin and their wheelchair through it, making the character + chair go through the “wall”, rather than go through the actual secret door into the secret garden, the magic has disappeared. The Indian paper chains and flowers were pretty but not enough to be magical, and the lovely Indian inspired powder paint thrown onto the back of the set was too little and too late in the show – and could not be seen by most of the audience.

There is magic in the creation of the robin played beautifully by Sharan Phull from the moment she pops up on top of the very high garden wall and charms with Indian song and dance, with a hennaed red breast on each of her hands, used as the sweet robin flittering from branch to branch. And for me, true open air theatre magic happened as a real robin decided to watch stage left on the speaker!

Other puppetry was made from transforming a black shawl into a crow, a fur stole into a grey squirrel and a jumper to a fox, lovingly played by the cast.

Richard Clews as the old loyal gardener Ben Weatherstaff and Amanda Hadingue as Mrs Medlock, in this production, a not quite so formidable housekeeper, are both classic perfect performances. Molly Hewitt-Richards as Martha has laugh out loud moments of natural comedy in her performance. And the word moor, pronounced “moo-er” by all three with their strong Yorkshire accent, is used to amusing effect throughout.

With a strong ensemble cast directed tightly by Anna Himali Howard the first act was a delight.

But the second act rambled by bringing in to play new storylines including a new love development between Colin and Dicken; and an AWOL aunt Padma (sister to both Mary and Colin’s dead mothers) joining the children in the secret garden, which again somewhat breaks the spell of who enters the garden to help everything grow.

There was a tacit point to introducing this new character, as the three Indian sisters had clearly chosen different paths, two by marrying rich Englishmen as both Mary and Colin’s dead mothers had; or fighting against the British Raj as Aunt Padma (Archana Ramaswamy) appears to have done.

This production attempts to show harsh differences between upper and lower classes, a hard call to mix into The Secret Garden. Colin (Theo Angel) must come to terms with the realisation that he will never walk and will always be in a wheelchair. So how could his disabled father Lord Craven (Jack Humphrey) ever love him, as his father is only interested in searching the world to find a cure for his son? Colin’s uncle Dr Craven (George Fletcher) also has a disability – the upper classes hide away disability. And then there is happy Dicken (Brydie Service) who uses a walking stick, yet everyone loves him, and he is called magical….

The script focuses on all the various characters’ disabilities – and the denouement of this production is that it is alright “not to be perfect” – but ultimately it is the parents who are to blame, depending on how they treat disabilities and differences when their offspring are young. Perfectly Harsh.

The star of the night is Hannah Khalique-Frown as Mary Lennox, playing this complex child with complete believability, rarely seen when an adult plays a 10-year-old. And by the end of The Secret Garden, you believe that her Mary cries real tears, as any loved normal child would.

Tag Archives: George Fletcher

TWELFTH NIGHT

★★★★

Barbican

TWELFTH NIGHT

Barbican

★★★★

“There are many moments of light and silliness in this production”

TWELFTH NIGHT

Barbican

Reviewed on 16th December 2025

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Helen Murray

TWELFTH NIGHT

TWELFTH NIGHT

TWELFTH NIGHT

THE SECRET GARDEN

★★★

Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre

THE SECRET GARDEN at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre

★★★

“With a strong ensemble cast directed tightly by Anna Himali Howard the first act was a delight”