The second Garioch Theatre Festival brought two very different and well-chosen pieces of “Abridged” Theatre to the Wyness Hall, which once again excellently illustrated the splendid performance skills of this talented bunch of youngsters.

In “Twelfth Night”, the characters came tumbling out in this comedy of errors, punctuated with short and appropriate musical extracts-very much in the mode of “Loves Labours Lost”-and what a joy it was. Shakespeare was never like this when I was at school!

The clever musical links instantly set the scene for the next character or device, with much heaving of sighs for a performance in which “Anything Goes”.

A scheming trio of Maria (Olivia Watt), Sir Toby Belch (Ruth Ledingham) and wonderful facial expressions from Sir Andrew Aguecheek (Claire Gauld) input more than their fair share of humour.

As the song said, they had it just right  “All the Way” for this first offering, and although all portrayals were excellent, my abiding memory for this production was a kilted  lovelorn Malvolio (Stephen Innes) still trying to bravely smile, exiting, completely unnoticed, armed with a suitcase!

The second play, “Hamlet”, was given a much more modern interpretation with, I suspect, the characters being given a little more leeway with their persona. For those not fully au fait with Shakespeare, we were provided with a “Shakespeare enthusiast”(Emma Jack) and “bored theatregoer”(Lucy Weir) who “interpreted” some of the more problematical aspects of the Bard. “There’s been a murrdur” seemed to sum it up nicely!

Again strong performances from all, with Alison Telfer a splendid Viola, with Cara Fraser(Sebastian) suitably “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered”.  I must also mention a very powerful Hamlet from a Matrix-like Louise Dalgarno and an extremely camp King Claudius from Callum Bell, with a death scene to end all death scenes.

A multi-purpose set and splendid costumes from Liz Cork made this yet another memorable evening from MSD.