Although Malvolio may not be the main role in Twelfth Night, it attracts distinguished actors — recently Derek Jacobi and Patrick Stewart — and in Gregory Doran’s new production the part is taken by RSC debutant Richard ­Wilson.

It would be hard not to catch a whiff of Victor Meldrew’s hauteur in this unctuously unpleasant steward who attends the Illyrian countess, Olivia, and becomes pathetically embroiled in the drama’s twinkly comedy of romantic opportunism.

Wilson brings other things to the role: at first there’s a noble stillness, and then his familiar strangulated diction suggests Malvolio’s constipated self-regard. Later, when the more ludicrous citizens of Illyria have finished baiting him, his ill-advised smile is quietly folded away.

It’s a decent though not truly distinguished performance, symptomatic of the unevenness of this interpretation. The play achieves clarity via a succession of mistakes and delusions. But Doran’s production, while suitably strong on epiphany, does not successfully convey the midsummer madness that precedes it.

For the first hour or so it simply isn’t very funny. Instead of the rather lawyerly jokes, it’s Sir Toby Belch’s farts that get the laughs. Proceedings only come alive when Malvolio is gulled. His deceivers perch inside a marvellously engineered box-tree — the highlight of Robert Jones’s texturally puzzling design.

In the second half the comedy and pathos move up several notches. Yet this is still an unusually sexless Twelfth Night, and it needs not just more pace but also a more decisively achieved mood.

The star performer is Nancy Carroll as Viola. She has both dignity and a charming lightness. Among the overtly comic characters, James Fleet’s Sir Andrew Aguecheek is an enjoyably feckless loser, but Miltos Yerolemou’s rascally Feste is unlovable — until the very end of the play, when he suddenly becomes moving — and Richard McCabe’s Sir Toby is cloyingly vulgar.

Doran’s production, which transfers to London in December, has enchanting moments. But it suffers by comparison with Michael Grandage’s luxuriantly funny version, seen in the West End less than a year ago.
Until 21 November (0844 800 1110).