SOURCE: "In Festive Spirit," in The Spectator, Vol. 259, No. 8318, December 12, 1987, p. 41.

Too much has been made of the supposed bitterness of Shakespeare's Arcadia. For instance, to Auden, Shakespeare was in no mood for comedy in this play. Instinctively, I side with Hazlitt who held that Twelfth Night was one of the most delightful of the comedies, containing little satire and no spleen: 'Shakespeare's comic genius resembles the bee rather in its power of extracting sweets from weeds or poisons, than in leaving a sting behind it.' At any rate, the spleen should not be seen as paramount. For this, among other reasons, Kenneth Branagh's generous-spirited, unsplenetic production at the Riverside Studios is very welcome.

Those mourning the passing of classically spoken blank verse may find only patchy comfort here, it is true. And those who prefer their Feste songs to be sung to traditional tunes may resist...