Mathew Horne plays Malvolio in this Crucible Sheffield production of Twelfth Night with buttoned-up precision and self-satisfied swagger. Dressed in a tight black suit with a supercilious air, Horne's character carries the bearing of someone convinced of his own superior taste and refinement, the review notes.
The production mines comedy from Malvolio's classic comeuppance. Tricked into dressing as a yellow-stockinged morris dancer, he tumbles from pomposity into humiliation. Yet Horne sustains the character's essential indignation throughout the fall. The review describes his performance as "smart and unyielding," moving from pompous to bruised while remaining defiantly unrepentant.
The staging deploys a live folky score that, according to the review, casts a "dream-like uncertainty" over Shakespeare's tangled romantic plot. The Guardian's critic frames the yellow stockings gag as delivering comedy that lands as effectively as it has across centuries of productions.