Twelfth Night review – if music be the food of love, rave

Shakespeare North Playhouse, Prescot
In this raucous production set at a summer festival, Viola and Sebastian have done too many pills, Sir Toby Belch listens to Arctic Monkeys … and Les Dennis’s Malvolio shows up to complain about the noise

If music be the food of love, do a sound check. This is a Twelfth Night for the festival season, the stage littered with amps and flight cases, the rumble of bands in nearby tents always pulsing. Hard-rocking siblings Viola and Sebastian appear to have been separated by one too many pills at a rave. Sir Toby Belch arrives to a riff by Arctic Monkeys, Maria sports a Purple Rain T-shirt, and Olivia launches into Stay by (who else?) Shakespears Sister.

The hedonistic setting suggests disorder is imminent, which makes it all the funnier when Les Dennis turns up as Malvolio to quieten a late-night racket. The culprit is Maria (Kate James), who has been leading her fellow revellers in a round of Blondie’s Maria (natch) and invited two audience members to join in the dancing. “Who are you?” splutters Dennis at the unexpected guests as they hurry back to their seats.