Yellow (Lower Theatre at theSpace @ Niddry Street) is an imagining of what might have happened to the characters in Twelfth Night, transposed into a 21st-century setting. The names have been modernised, as has the setting, thus helping the audience – should they need it – to identify the original Shakespeare characters. You don’t need to know the original play to ‘get’ this production, but it certainly helps, and there are allusions that will make no sense if you don’t.
The Lower Theatre is a spacious venue – which becomes important when Edinburgh gets hot – and the staging is clever, with lighting that highlights the area of the wider stage where the action is happening. The beginning is promising: Coldplay’s ‘Yellow’ plays while Toby listens on headphones, singing along and doing a mean air guitar solo. But whilst the modern-day Toby is genial, full of bluster and bonhomie, I felt he overplayed his part somewhat. Shakespeare’s Sir Toby is a more nuanced character, albeit full of high spirits, than this Toby.
The other characters remain fairly true to the originals. And perhaps that was the problem for me. This was more of a replay of Twelfth Night in modern dress, without Shakespeare’s immaculate language. Perhaps something more subtly based on the original, with more relatable modern-day characters, would have worked better for me. I liked the idea, but the execution not quite so much. Maybe I just watch too much Shakespeare – as if that’s possible!
Yellow’s plot is a bit too hidebound by being a retelling, and I certainly didn’t think it lived up to the Thick of It comparison heralded in the Cross-Gartered Players’ own publicity material. Trying to emulate Shakespeare and Iannucci as your muses is herculean in ambition – but it leaves a long way to fall if you miss the mark. For me, it did.
It’s a shame, and I do applaud Yellow’s ambition. There are some clever lines and decent performances, and trying to fit a Shakespearean plot into 50 minutes inevitably means a lot of compromises.
Yellow may well be worth a punt, and if you sit in the garden outside the venue for a while, the company’s very persuasive cross-gartered publicist may well persuade you that it is. You could certainly do a lot worse.
