You’ve probably heard of Malvolio, the pompous steward from Twelfth Night whose poor choice of stockings drives his comic downfall. This show from student-led Zuzabella Productions seeks not so much to rehabilitate Malvolio, as to reinvent him – and to subvert the rest of Shakespeare’s plot along the way. It’s an interesting queer take on the gender confusion underpinning the story, but sadly let down by muddy execution.

The Malvolio of this play is a “brilliant fool”, scarcely recognisable alongside the prissy puritan of the original. In place of repressed desire, we have confident self-expression; far from tricking him into donning the yellow stockings, it’s his fashion-conscious peers who persuade him to remove them. This is more a fantasy version of Malvolio than a fantasy within the Shakespearean Malvolio’s mind, and I can’t help but feel it would be interesting to explore his journey from there to here.

But there’s another, more meaningful transformation at work, from the heteronormative expectations of Tudor England to the more fluid acceptance of today. The bi-curious Orsino is camp and louche in equal measure; Olivia can swoon as magnificently as the era demands, yet expertly wields her hidden power. Her refusal to remarry comes with a feminist spin and, crucially, a loophole, pointing the way to an unwinding of the confusion which in many ways feels more credible than Shakespeare’s.

But alas, the delivery is lacking. The acting talents on display vary wildly, with some lines mangled so badly by comedy accents that I couldn’t make them out at all. Brief forays into music aren’t followed through, and while some of the anachronisms are well-judged and intentional, others are out-and-out confusing. Overall, it’s not fast-paced enough to count as a farce, but the thought-provoking concept gets blurred as it stretches for quirky comedy.

The blurb describes the show as a “campy mess”, and it’s right – just not quite in the way it intended. The campy parts are great, with excellent costumes and some funny motifs, most notably the luxurious moustaches which are the defining feature of masculinity. But tighter structure and sharper execution will be needed before this fantasy can be real.