Reimagining Shakespeare’s Illyria as a seaside holiday resort from the 1970s, complete with ramshackle beach huts, Shake is a delirious pop-theatre rethink of Twelfth Night from British-born director Dan Jemmett and his French-based theatre company Eat a Crocodile.

When a shipwreck separates twins Viola and Sebastian, Viola disguises herself as a boy to work for Count Orsino – and promptly falls in love with him, only to be pursued herself by Olivia, the woman that Orsino adores. Meanwhile, mischievous Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew Aguecheek conspire to teach Olivia’s pompous manservant Malvolio a lesson, by making him believe it’s he whom his mistress loves.

Dan Jemmett’s playful, poetic production takes audiences back to the seaside of the 1970s, as Feste the clown breaks out his vinyls of Herb Alpert and Geoff Love on his vintage turntable, and five actors frantically slip between the play’s 18 roles in a farcical mix of music hall, pantomime and vaudeville, where boys play girls playing boys playing girls.

This is Shakespeare’s most complete comedy, mixing charm and wonderment, with a touch of cruelty for good measure.

Director Dan Jemmett has been widely acclaimed in France and abroad. He has worked at the Théâtre National de Chaillot, Théâtre de la Ville, La Comédie-Française and at Peter Brook’s Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord. Shake was premiered in Lausanne in 2001, and won the 2002 French Critics’ Prize for New Theatre. This is Dan Jemmett’s second, revised production of the show, in a new translation by Marie-Paule Ramo.

[Shake] is a marvel of theatre that makes you wish you could run to it again and again.

Le Temps