The veteran actor talks about playing Malvolio and embracing the shock of the new.

When Kit Brookman’s play The Great Fire premiered at Sydney’s Belvoir Theatre in April, Peter Carroll portrayed an elderly man with dementia. It was a small role, which frequently had him nodding off on the sofa, but he gave arguably the most powerful, affecting performance of the night.

Doing so much with so little, but without overplaying it, Carroll showed once again why he is one of our most treasured stage actors. Now, Carroll is back at Belvoir to play the puritanical killjoy Malvolio in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, directed by Eamon Flack, the man who also helmed The Great Fire.

Talking to Limelight prior to rehearsals, the veteran actor is excited about collaborating with Flack again – who he describes as having “a wonderful mind” – on a play he has long loved. “I think it will be good. It is the most beautiful play. And there is a suppleness and a lightness and a fairly wicked sense of humour that Eamon has, so I think it will be very engaging. I’ve loved some of his other productions of Shakespeare, in particular the Midsummer Night’s Dream that...