SHAKESPEARE in the open air is a summer tradition, and this year the memory of sitting in the rain and cold seems like a thing of the past. It was a welcome relief as the cooling breeze wafted across the front of Muchelney’s ancient abbey, following the adventures of storm-separated identical twins Viola and Sebastian.

This year’s Taunton Thespians summer tour is blessed and cursed by the weather – blessed with warmth and cursed by the need to wear Elizabethan costumes in often dizzying heat – and we’re warned this is fast becoming an annual dilemma.

Twelfth Night is entry-level Shakespeare, and extremely popular – the FTR already has ten reviews of different productions. It depends on an understanding of the humour, relatably comic characters, a knife-edge balance between joking and cruelty, and two people who look very very similar. In Barrie Palmer’s production for the Thespians it has all of these, and clearly it delighted the eager Muchelney audience.

Olivia (Alison Jenkinson) is a wealthy woman mourning the deaths of her father and brother in short order. She’s not in any mood for wooing – until a young man, Cesario (actually Viola and played by the excellent Hannah Eden) turns up at her door to plead the romantic case of the Duke Orsino of Illyria. Olivia is immediately taken by the boy, who is of course a girl and one of the twins shipwrecked off the coast, and is also in love-at-first-sight with the Duke.

In Olivia’s house, which is run with a rod of iron by the humourless, preening Malvolio, lives Sir Toby Belch, the drunken uncle, and the serving woman Maria. Sir Toby’s rich and richly idiotic friend Sir Andrew is visiting, trying to woo Olivia too. And flitting between the ducal palace and Olivia’s home is Feste the clown – one of those Shakespearean fools who speaks in very wise riddles.

Along with the love scenes – Twelfth Night is home to the famous Willow Cabin speech – and lots of romantic Tudor music, there are wickedly funny revenge plots, faux duels, mistaken identity and a denouement that (when convincingly done) brings a lump to the throat of even the most seasoned reviewer.

Outstanding in this 13-strong cast are Alastair MacLeod’s Sir Andrew, perhaps the best Aguecheek I have seen. He’s well matched by Rob Adam’s Malvolio (pictured), a man puzzled by how people don’t love him. Liz Browne is a wonderfully Somerset Maria, full of warmth and wiles. Young drama students Hannah Eden and Emma Thornton make totally convincing twins and Martine Davies has just the right chirpy wisdom for Feste. Alan Coles makes a memorable character out of the usual makeweight Fabian.

The Thespians summer tours started in 2001 with Twelfth Night, only pausing for COVID. Returning to this hugely enjoyable play, the tour continues to Cleeve Abbey (18th July), Taunton (21st), Cannington (22nd), North Curry (23rd), Corfe (24th) and ending at Crowcombe Heathfield on Saturday 25th July.

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