SOURCE: Dodsworth, Martin. “Grace Notes.” Times Literary Supplement, no. 4658 (10 July 1992): 18.

In the following review, Dodsworth discusses Peter Hall's production of All's Well That Ends Well, describing it as deeply powerful and moving.

Its unattractive young hero—silly, selfish, snobbish—makes All's Well That Ends Well a notoriously difficult play; there seems to be so little in Bertram for Helena to love. By a desperate stratagem she forces him to marry her, but after the ceremony he will have nothing more to do with her; she remains faithful, suffers humiliation and indignity for his sake, and in the end is reunited with him. Readers of the play are apt to ask why this should have to be; Bertram hardly seems worth all the trouble he causes. The challenge for actors and directors is to show us that it does have to be. One of the many virtues of Sir...