SOURCE: A review of Twelfth Night, in Shakespeare Survey: An Annual Survey of Shakespearian Study and Production, Vol. 12, 1959, pp. 126-29.

Twelfth Night has not a 'personal' title, and it hardly seems to have a central character, prominent or retired, unless we follow, as most star actors and modern productions do, the theatrical logic of opportunity that led to the comedy's being called, as early as 1623, 'Malvolio'. It has, of course, the two elements usual in a Shakespeare comedy, a romantic plot and a comic plot, usually played for contrast and counterpoint rather than brought to any final resolution and harmony. In the programme note to Peter Hall's production at Stratford in 1958, Ivor Brown speaks of the comic plot as 'secondary' but that hardly does justice to what may have been the producer's intention in keeping Malvolio in his place. Yet to select any one of the endearingly familiar...