It should be heartbreak hotel, but it's more a case of Fawlty Towers in Lucy Bailey's production, which sets Shakespeare's melancholic romantic comedy in one of the chic boutique-style hotels beloved of rock stars. Only in this case, the hotel has seen better days and the pop idol is Duke Orsino, lovesick for Olivia, the kind of woman who wears sunglasses even when she is wearing a dressing-gown.
As an idea, it fits the play like a glove. However, it also proves that you need more than a good wheeze to make Shakespeare seem sprightly. Essential components - great storytelling and verse-speaking - are lacking here. Bailey increasingly falls back on the comedy, neglecting the plangent emotional undertow of a drama that can crack your heart in two.
That's not to say there aren't some good gags: the scene in which Malvolio is tricked into believing that Olivia loves him is a hoot, with Sir Toby and Sir Andrew as a cross-dressing double act. But all this is extraneous to the play, and slows down an already ponderous production.
More disastrous still is the lack of attention given to the great ache at the very heart of the play. This is one of the great romantic love stories of all time, but you wouldn't know it here - although the scenes between Emma Cunniffe's disguised Viola and Madeleine Worrall's Olivia do have a spark. None the less, this is a Twelfth Night singularly without erotic charge or the pain of unrequited love.
By the time the stage begins to fill with water, the production has sunk into all-out knockabout comedy. Sure, it's entertaining enough, as long as you are aware that you're only getting half the play.
· Until October 25. Box office: 0161-833 9833.
