Bermudian actor Jason Eddy is excited to return to the island to perform for the first time in almost 20 years.

Mr Eddy, who has made a name for himself acting across Europe, is set to take to the stage in a production of William Shakespeare’s comedy Twelfth Night as part of the 2017 Bermuda Festival.

The island is the third stop for the production, which has already earned glowing reviews in both Croatia and Vienna with Mr Eddy in the role of Duke Orsino.

“We started in Dubrovnik originally last summer. The producer of the show runs a Shakespeare festival once a year in Croatia called Midsummer Scene, and it is open air in a fort by the ocean in the summer. It’s a good job. It was received really well, and we wanted to see if the show had a longer life, so he was pitching it to other theatres and Vienna’s English Theatre was interested in a run.

“We literally just finished a two month run there. We have been really amazed — well, not too amazed because it’s a great show — but it has been received really well.”

While he said the team were a little concerned about performing Shakespeare in a country where the first language is not English, but the crowds came out, leading to largely full houses throughout the run.

“Everyone loved it,” he said. “The German speakers thought it was really clear and easy to understand, the reviews were fantastic, and we had a wonderful time in Vienna, so I’m really excited being able to bring it to Bermuda.”

While Mr Eddy has not performed on the island since he was a teenager, he has remained busy. Last year alone he starred as the Beast in a London production of Beauty and the Beast, and claimed the leading part in a short film before travelling to Vienna for the latest run of Twelfth Night.

“To come back and perform in my home country as a professional actor, at the Bermuda Festival, is a big deal for me,” he said.

“I have often thought it would be wonderful to come back, and whenever I have been in something I think is really good I see if the Bermuda Festival are interested.

“The rest of the cast are also very excited about coming down to Bermuda. They are very, very excited. None of them have been to Bermuda before. They are all back in the UK at the moment in quite cold conditions and looking forward to the warmer weather.

“For them, I think it will be really interesting to perform before a Bermudian audience, to see the difference between the audiences that we have had. I have told them that we will get a warm welcome, and a lot of people will love a lot of the comedy elements.”

The show surrounds a twin brother and sister who are shipwrecked and washed ashore in different places. Each believing the other is dead, the female twin dresses as a man to ensure her safety and finds herself working in Duke Orsino’s court.

“Consequently everyone falls in love with the wrong person, there are lots of mistaken identities, lots of funny jokes about people not knowing who is who,” Mr Eddy said with a laugh. “It’s a really great show.

“The thing that’s interesting about my character Orsino is he’s a really important character. He’s larger than life. He’s someone in love with being in love. The play starts with him expressing his love for the Countess Olivia, who is rejecting all his advances.

“It’s great playing a character that has that high status, and his journey is quite interesting. His ideas about women are challenged by Viola, dressed as a boy, and it’s interesting that Shakespeare was writing these themes 400 years ago, and you have these things about gender and how women and men feel and what men and women are capable of feeling. Shakespeare at that time is pointing out the attitudes towards how women should behave and feel about love are ridiculous.”

Twelfth Night will be performed on January 24 and 25 at the Earl Cameron Theatre in City Hall. Tickets are available now at bdatix.bm