Twelfth Night (1932)
William Shakespeare
After a run at the New Theatre - now the Noel Coward - Robert Atkins and Sydney Carroll's 'successful musical version of Twelfth Night in black and white' transferred to a make shift theatre in Regent's Park. Twelfth Night was to be the first of many productions staged underneath the stars in the middle of the Royal Park. Even then, in 1932, the theatre was tipped to turn into 'one of the most firmly established of London's summer joys.'
The cast
John Laurie
Feste
Robert Atkins
Sir Toby Belch
Ruth Britter
Ensemble
Jack Carlton
Fabian
Joan Cary
Ensemble
Jean Forbes-Robertson
Viola
Clare Harris
Maria
A B Imeson
Antonio
Godfrey Kenton
Sebastian
Edwin Morton
A Priest
Phyllis Neilson-Terry
Olivia
Cecil Ramage
Orsino
Arthur Wontner
Malvolio
Valentine Rooke
Sir Andrew
Creative team
Reviews
Daily Telegraph
"If a single deck chair remains vacant then some foolish playgoer is missing a treat"
Sunday Referee
"The beauty of their performance and of the clothes they wore was even more marked against the background of a copse and cooing overhead."
Daily Herald
"I have discovered the perfect way of enjoying Shakespeare. It is to lie back in a deck chair on a velvety lawn with so much space between the seats that no latecomers can tumble over your legs, with freedom to smoke, and rose-scented air to breathe."
Yorkshire Observer
"I have never seen a play with greater pleasure. Sitting in a deck chair stall on a warm afternoon, the rustling of the leaves just accompanying but not drowing the voices of the players, their platform a piece of raised ground and shrublined paths their doors, the experimental matinee was one of the few really successful theatrical novelties to watch."
Theatre World
"No Shakespearean lover can afford to miss this."