Twelfth Night at Shakespeare’s Globe review: expertly-conducted, riotous fun

Inclusion and exclusion are the keynotes of Robin Belfield’s carnivalesque production of Shakespeare’s play, which features a delicious central performance from Ronkẹ Adékọluẹ́jọ́ as Viola. The cast build what’s possibly the strongest rapport with an audience that I’ve ever felt at the Globe and the comedy is delightfully on point. Yet there’s also a powerful sense of what it is to be shut out - the stranger at the feast. It’s great to hear laughter surge around this wooden ‘O’ but also compassionate sighs of sympathy.

Most obviously, the separately shipwrecked Viola and her brother Sebastian (Kwami Odoom) find themselves cast ashore and apparently bereaved in an alien land that’s in festival mode. Their African print tunic suits set them apart from the garish costumes of Illyria, and Adékọluẹ́jọ́’s Viola – posing as a boy and serving Duke Orsino (Solomon Israel) with whom she’s secretly smitten – sounds progressively more Nigerian the more emotional she becomes.