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Tim is back in the swing (From Basingstoke Gazette)
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Tim is back in the swing
11:00am Saturday 18th April 2009
IT’S 30 years since he last played the part, but actor Tim Frances is looking forward to reviving the role of Sir Toby Belch in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.
The experienced thespian – who has just finished filming a two-part BBC television series of The Day Of The Triffids – studied drama at Birmingham University, where he last played the part of Sir Toby Belch.
Frances said: “I think he’s nastier this time and I’d like to think he’s a rounder, truer character, as I’m now 30 years older!”
The Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds production of Twelfth Night – which comes to The Haymarket in Basingstoke next week – has been given a Georgian treatment.
Frances explained: “There are Georgian costumes and a Georgian set and the production involves the audience, who are spoken to, so it’s very much an 18th century style of play.
“Rather than speaking into the darkness, we actually make eye contact and the lights are up all the time so you can see people’s faces.”
He added: “It’s not something a lot of people are used to. English theatre usually works in a very different way and is about creating a different world that the audience watches, but for this the audience have to work a bit as well.”
Frances, who grew up in Newbury and attended St Bartholomew’s School, describes his character as an “ebullient drunk”, but said that the production does not ignore the darker elements of the play.
He said: “A lot of productions of Twelfth Night are about fun, buffoonery and drunks and shy away from what, for all of us, is very clearly a tragic side of the play.
“Malvolio is a preposterous, pretentious character but he has a great tragic side to him, and Belch is a thoroughly unpleasant man.”
The play is running from April 22 until May 2 and tickets, from £16.50, with concessions available and matinee tickets at £12, can be booked at the Anvil Arts box office on 01256 844244, or at anvilarts.org.uk.
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