What country, friends, is this?
Viola (Act 1, Sc 2)

Being shipwrecked has never been quite so joyful or so mad.

Twins are washed up after a shipwreck on the shores of a strange land, each unaware of the other’s fate. They’re in Illyria, which is strangely like our world, but this is a dreamland too – where music is the food of love, and nobody is quite what they seem. Girls are boys, boys are girls, puritans are lusting suitors, drunkards are moralists, and fools, of course, are wise. Eventually brother and sister find each other again – that’s hardly a spoiler – but what will they see and hear in the meantime?

There’s more to Shakespeare’s great play than muddled identity and exuberant celebration – it’s a mature story of melancholia amid the mayhem, of what is lost along the way even when life’s journey is a barrel of laughs.

With Peter Carroll as the killjoy Malvolio, and the wonderful Nikki Shiels as Viola, joined by an array of rogues and charmers, Twelfth Night will be something deliciously warm for a Sydney mid-winter.

We have performances of Twelfth Night at family friendly times, so you can bring the family along, and be home and cosy at a reasonable hour.

Need a refresher on Shakespeare? Find our summary here.