SOURCE: "Frosty Festivity," in The Observer, December 6, 1987, p. 23.

From the programme arranged like an advent calendar and the stage upon which at first you can make out only wintry shapes because of an expanse of gauze which veils the view, it is apparent that Kenneth Branagh's Twelfth Night (Riverside) takes delight in mystery and discovery.

And when the world is unwrapped, the gauze lifted on Bunny Christie's set, the effect is entrancing. Illyria is a luxurious but ruined place of broken balustrades, statuettes and fugitive furniture—a grandfather clock and chaise-longue stand out incongruously in the snow. Throughout the evening, high up on a stone terrace, musicians play Pat Doyle's and Paul McCartney's sweet but melancholy music, specially commissioned for this production.

The period is imprecisely defined, Edwardian perhaps—or Illyria's equivalent. Viola and Sebastian are both got up in grey flannel suits. Kenneth Branagh has made sure...