I was apprehensive about coming to see this play, as I found out it finished about 10 o'clock - I was dreading sitting through three hours of Shakespeare! But as soon as the piece started, with the Duke of Orsino's first lines, I was taken in by this fantastic piece of acting. At first, I did find the concept of the story hard to grasp, yet throughout, the story is made clear to the audience through some fantastic acting by Honeysuckle Weeks, who played Viola, but was disguised as Cesario.
Matthew Kelly has spent years presenting 'Stars In Their Eyes', and he has been wasting his talents - what a fantastic actor! He gave a tremendous performance as Malvolio, the rather pompous steward of Olivia’s. He was the main focal point of the audience from the moment he set foot on the stage and he provided most of the comedic value that was experienced that night. Brilliant performances also came from Paul Benzing as the sea captain and Christopher Benjamin as Sir Toby Belch, who played a great drunkard. He played it rather too well, which is worrying! Sir Andrew was also portrayed fabulously by Roger Barclay. A special mention must go to the clown-like figure, Feste, who was absolutely amazing. Hilton McRae, a hilarious character as well as a fantastic vocalist and a talented guitarist, played him.  | | Kathryn saw some fantastic acting |
The set was basic, yet set out in such a way that looked very effective. The best thing technically by far was the lighting, this helped transform the set into its different setting. Costumes were also a focal point, with most costumes being black, following the theme of 'mourning' at the beginning of the play. Olivia wears a stunning gown at one point during a scene. This, I'm sure, left some audience members blinded - myself included! Malvolio wears a yellow outfit after reading a letter, apparently from Olivia, which other than being a fashion tragedy, was absolutely hilarious. The audience was absolutely hysterical after seeing Malvolio dressed in such a way! Where I was seated made it even more brilliant, as the actors were acting to the stalls. One of the things I was disappointed with was the lack of people in attendance as the performance was astounding, and yet there were not a lot of people there to witness what fantastic actors we had in our presence. I reckon that the fact this was a Shakespearean classic had put some theatregoers off, but this wasn't boring. The number of students and youth in the audience far outweighed the number of older people. The cast got a standing ovation at the end of the performance, which I believe was thoroughly deserved. | 
