With mistaken identities, mischievous schemes and unexpected romances, Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night is one of the most beloved comedies on stage. Director Jamie Glover and actor Mathew Horne, playing Malvolio, speak about the rehearsal process and what they are most looking forward to in staging this classic play. 

This is a fantastic play to be bringing to the Crucible stage. What excites you most about staging this at the Crucible specifically?

MH: Well, the Crucible is a theatre that I’ve not played before and it’s a very prominent thrust stage, and that can make for a very different theatre experience, whatever play you’re putting on. Twelfth Night is largely a celebration: a celebration of love, being who you are and identity, and being on such a prominent thrust stage really brings the audience to the play than rather than us taking the play to the audience. It’s an enormous, immersive experience actually. 

In the Crucible, you’re also at ground level when you’re performing, the same level as the audience, and there’s something really thrilling about that, about bringing an audience in to your world – whatever you’re creating. I think Twelfth Night is a world of love and magic and fantasy, so we can take the audience along with us much more easily in that Crucible environment. 

JG: I’m not just saying this because I’m working there, but I think the Crucible is genuinely one of the most exciting theatre spaces in Britain. Twelfth Night is, and has always been, my favourite play, so to do it here is perfect. It really is the most extraordinary space because it thrusts everyone into the heart of the action, and there’s so much going on in Twelfth Night that’s funny, sad and moving, the wraparound the Crucible brings is perfect for this play – perfect for most plays, actually – but perfect for Twelfth Night. It couldn’t be a better venue as far as I’m concerned. 

The people of Sheffield are very proud of Sheffield having this relatively unique stage design. How have you approached directing differently to perhaps how you might for a proscenium stage?

JG: Being on a thrust stage is an amazing privilege; I think it’s the best of both worlds. I’m personally not always a fan of being in the full round, I quite like a production that I’m watching or directing to have secrets, and a fourth, back wall allows that. But here, you are absolutely in the heart of the action so you can use the voms and have downstage and upstage entrances – it feels so active to perform on but also, as an audience, there really isn’t a bad seat in the house and that’s a rare thing. It’s an extraordinary theatre and I think it’s probably my favourite theatre in the country. 

Mathew, what is your relationship with Shakespeare? What inspiration have you drawn on to get into the mind of Malvolio?

MH: My earliest memory of Shakespeare was probably studying and going to see at Henry V school. Shakespeare has been a huge part of my cultural and educational experience. He is so lauded in this country – quite rightly – that he is ubiquitous in popular culture and within the arts. So studying, watching and then being lucky enough to perform Shakespeare has meant it’s been part of my life from a very young age. 

Most recently, my first professional Shakespeare was The Tempest in the West End [opposite Sigourney Weaver], so the natural question I had following that was ‘What Shakespeare role would I like to play next after the Tempest?’, and the answer was Malvolio. Inspiration for the role of Malvolio is interesting because it’s important for me when I’m doing Shakespeare – well, with all plays really, but with Shakespeare particularly, because of the historical context – to find the truth the human condition of that character and that’s what I’m aiming to do in this instance too. It’s very easy to think that Malvolio is merely a comic turn, but he’s much, much deeper than that and multi-layered, so going through those layers is what really excites me about playing him. Many fantastic comic actors have played Malvolio over the years and I’m really looking forward to taking that on. Recently we lost the brilliant actor Tim Curry and I thought, ‘Oh he would have made a great Malvolio’ but he never played him. So maybe I will try and bring a bit of Tim Curry to it. 

Jamie, you are an actor (recently seen opposite Rosamund Pike in Inter Alia) as well as a director. What are the benefits and challenges of having one foot in each camp when it comes to a show like this?

JG: I would say this because I’m an actor and a director! But I do think it helps because I know what it feels like – that’s the big thing, directors who are or have been actors know what it feels like. They can sense if there’s a problem or if you feel like you’re in the wrong position as an actor. I think a fellow actor can put themselves in your shoes and really respond to that. I had an experience like that with Michael Grandage, late of this parish of course [King Lear was produced by Sheffield Theatres in association with Michael Grandage Company, and Michael Grandage is a former Artistic Director at Sheffield Theatres], with a show I did at the Donmar Warehouse with him. I was really struggling with an entrance. I said “I’ve got a real problem here”, and he went up and did it and realised what I meant. He immediately felt what that problem was and I think that’s helpful. 

You also know, as an actor, what it feels like when you come to the boil in a rehearsal process. What the nerves do; what gifts they bring and what you have to fight to stop them taking away. The whole process of acting, I believe, is that it’s the actors and writers who should be highlighted; my favourite directors make themselves disappear. I think the director’s job should be to bring the actors to the fore and let the writing sing. Of course there are directors who aren’t actors who can do that, but it’s definitely an advantage that you can put yourself in their shoes. 

Mat, you’re a hugely celebrated comedy actor, in particular for your role in Gavin and Stacey. How different is working on a 400-year-old comedy as opposed to a modern one? Do you have to work in different ways to get the laughs? 

MH: I don’t think you do have to work in different ways, I certainly don’t approach it in a different way. For me, with any play or any piece of work, any script, any character, it’s about finding the truth of the situation and the circumstances with that character; what the reality is of this character’s world. We are all human beings at the end of the day, whether it’s 400 years ago or yesterday. Finding that truth means there will be some commonality there and it’s my job to find that truth and bring it to the present. 

Expanding on that answer, what parallels do you see in the comedy of Shakespeare and the comedy of today?

MH: Well, a lot of Shakespeare’s comedy is quite puerile and I think most people’s introduction to comedy, at school, in the playground, is generally quite puerile. Slapstick comedy and clowning, which is well over a hundred years old, was certainly part of my formative experience. I grew up with Laurel and Hardy and Charlie Chaplin – not that I was born in the 1920s – but that was my experience of it. I think it will always be part of comedy culture and I suppose the best modern example of that is Mr Bean. So they would be my two parallels. I’m not saying that Malvolio embodies either or both of those, but I would like to think that he does by the time I’ve got to the end of rehearsals!

How are you approaching the physicality of the role and the comedy within that?

MH: It’s a very broad arc that Malvolio goes through. In the early part of the play, he’s incredibly buttoned-up and there is a certain stiffness to him, which is really delicious to play. It’s keeping your powder dry because you know what’s coming. He’s persuaded into a physicality and extravagance which is actually prescribed by another character in the play when they’re writing a prank letter; he’s to behave in a certain way which is opposite to the way he’s known for being, not only in the lives of the other characters, but also in what the audience has seen in the first half of the play. So it’s about marking and modulating that – those transitions and that arc to make it distinctive and faithful to what I think Shakespeare intended. 

Finally, what are you both most looking forward to about this production, and what should audiences expect from the experience?

MH: There’s a potential here at the Crucible, particularly with the school’s programme which is running in line with this show, of bringing Shakespeare and Twelfth Night to a brand-new audience and possibly creating somebody’s first ever experience of theatre. That to me is incredibly exciting. What is important to me when doing Shakespeare is finding the truth of a character and a story and making that accessible and applicable to the present day. You can do that in abundance when you’re performing plays that are on the curriculum or you know that you’ve got lots of students coming in to watch it and to learn – I find that really exciting. Tthe main thing that I’m really looking forward to is bringing this play and Shakespeare to a modern audience and hopefully making it mean something to them – and above all of that, giving them an enjoyable night out. 

JG: I hope audiences will get a bit of everything – it is my favourite play and is so because there’s so much of the human experience in it. There’s how closely aligned grief and romantic love are and I think that happens with Olivia, the way that she’s grieving but then suddenly falls herself headlong in love. It’s very funny, painful, witty, and I think with Mathew Horne – who is in my opinion one of the finest comic actors – playing one of the finest comic roles, people are in for a treat. It sounds like a pretty good combination to me, and is proving so in the rehearsal room. I can’t wait to see him and this incredible company of actors, which some people will know from King Lear already, they’re really an extraordinarily strong ensemble and they are something to behold. I can’t wait for people to see it. 

Twelfth Night opens at the Crucible on Saturday 10 October. Tickets are available here.