SOURCE: "Austerity and Sensitivity," in The Times, London, August 7, 1970, p. 10.

Substantially recast since its first appearance a year ago, John Barton's Twelfth Night arrives at the Aldwych having undergone one of those transformations that often overtake productions on the road from Stratford to London.

Originally this seemed to be Feste's Twelfth Night: a shifting perspective of romantic ardour and romantic folly seen through the eyes of the Fool against an everpresent sense of the effects of time.

The main emphasis has been displaced to a contrast between the play's lyricism and broad comedy: and with much of the fun knocked out of the comedy. You might almost describe the result as an economic interpretation: on one side Orsino and Viola with money enough to surrender to delicate emotion; and on the other, the creatures of Olivia's household, all (including Barrie Ingham's Scottish skinflint Aguecheek) materially enslaved to the...