Twelfth Night, when Christmas trees are recycled and the tinsel disappears for eleven months, has always been the excuse for up-ending normality.

Shakespeare's great comedy, unusually for the time, shows a woman running her life quite efficiently.

Duke Orsino, supposedly a powerful nobleman, sits about on cushions moping and being soppy.

Anna Hope showed Olivia's bright intelligence and enthusiasm for life – that she couldn't spot that Orsino's page was a cross-dressing girl can be forgiven.

She captured Olivia's haughtiness and sense of fun, but also her kindness when Malvolio was shown to be the victim of a practical joke.

Oliver Senton as Orsino, distracted by love, wasn't too sure about the page to start with, but landed up marrying him/her anyway. His melancholy, fed by music, the food of love, was finely captured.

Green baubles hanging over the uncluttered stage suggested festive decorations whilst a wintry tree scene was projected onto the back with an illusory tree at stage centre.

This production, directed by Abigail Anderson and designed by Libby Watson, enabled us to concentrate on the language and characters more closely. Attention was well rewarded.

Sirs Andrew Aguecheek and Toby Belch, nominally aristocrats but with no sense and fewer manners, are splendid roles for acting up. Oliver Senton and Tim Frances seized opportunities by the throat and clowned superbly.

The peroxided Aguecheek was quick to drop his Gladstone bag, packed to leave, when he knew there was to be fun afoot. They easily rival the professional joker Feste (Eamonn O'Dwyer).

Maria, (Mary Ryder) the servant who stepped out of her station to mock her betters, dealt with their idiocies patiently and was only too ready to wind them up a bit more.

Malvolio, Olivia's chief servant, became their "common recreation" – that is, the butt of all their jokes. Persuaded by a forged letter that cross-gartered yellow stockings were sexy enough to attract the boss, he went for it.

Michael Onslow celebrated this difficult role enthusiastically, showing the mortification when his tricksters reveal the truth sensitively.

The twins washed up from a shipwreck by the sea are not as expected. Sebastian the brother (Bradley Clarkson), says little and does not appear very often, but gets the rich lady in the end.

His more forthright sister Viola, disguised as a boy, ventures into match making and dominates the plot.

Wittily independent, Amy Humphreys took on her disguise stylishly, and it became easy to accept that she was both boy and girl. The moving moment when the twins were reunited was delicately handled.

Music both opens and closes the action, charming the senses and making anything possible.

Audiences have the freedom to interact with the cast, who make full use of the Theatre Royal's extensive staging, ensuring the continuing success of the play once described by Samuel Pepys as "silly". What a lot of fun he must have missed.

©Mary Dunk, 2009.