SOURCE: “Before the War,” in Times Literary Supplement, No. 4727, November 5, 1993, p. 18.

In the following review, Wells praises the Edwardian Oxford setting of the production of Love's Labour's Lost staged at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon. According to the critic, the set's visual appeal camouflaged the intellectual obstacles posed by the play's language. However, Wells finds that while the actors’ studied approach to the language made the play more understandable, the pace and comic impact suffered.

Ian Judge has had the ingenious notion of superimposing upon Shakespeare's many verbal conceits in Love's Labours Lost the theatrical conceit of locating its action in Edwardian Oxford. The court of Navarre becomes the courtyard of an Oxford college, the lodge in the royal park is a porter's lodge, and Don Adriano de Armado is not the only don on the horizon. John Gunter's charming basic set of old stone walls and...