SOURCE: A review of Twelfth Night in Plays and Players, Vol. 26, No. 10, July, 1979, pp. 29-30.

In this new production Terry Hands seems to be seeking to direct us to a reappraisal of the traditional view of this piece as a simple Christmas divertissement, and in so doing gives us a production which in places seems perverse in its interpretation of characters and their narrative functions. Yet one of the happiest consequences of this rather wilful treatment is a re-think on Orsino and Olivia, neither of whom, traditionally played, is the most enlivening of Shakespeare's creations: Orsino, who usually droops about the stage like a wilting love-lies-bleeding, is here driven by his lovesickness into a bitter aggression, and rants (and raves) like the proverbial bear with a sore head which his name suggests. The opening scene of the play, therefore, came as something of a shock to the audience...