SOURCE: Macaulay, Alastair. “Yankee Doodle Isn't Dandy.” Financial Times (16 April 2002): 18.

In the following review, Macaulay derides Matthew Warchus's 2002 Royal Shakespeare Company production of The Winter's Tale for its unnecessary length and for the English actors' distracting use of American accents.

The RSC is starting a London regime at the Roundhouse, and I wish it well there. This is an exciting, unpretentious space. But it has acquired steep, stiff new seating for its RSC season, with entrances so circuitous that, on press night, the opening production had to start more than 20 minutes late while many of us were still queueing to reach our seats. The circumstances are irritating. And the production is unimportant, eccentric, unnecessary.

The RSC needs a production that will make the simplicity and immediacy of the Roundhouse bring out its best virtues. It doesn't need a Winter's Tale that (not counting the late start) runs at...