SOURCE: Lindop, Grevel. “Cold Wars and Boors.” Times Literary Supplement, no. 4878 (27 September 1996): 19.

In the following review, Lindop offers a rather negative appraisal of Matthew Lloyd's production of All's Well That Ends Well, commenting on the production's lack of emotional warmth and “unwelcoming” set.

Austerity is the keynote: for the Royal Exchange Theatre itself—relocated, after last June's bombing, to the elegant but bleak caverns of Upper Campfield Market—and for this production, set in a stiff and chilly version of the 1930s and holding throughout to the sombre economies implied by the all-black costumes of its opening stage-direction.

All's Well is the most problematic of problem plays, mixing fairy-tale with grimly unattractive realism. Helena, offered her choice of husbands after healing the stricken King of France, chooses the unpleasant Bertram, a cynical philanderer who rejects her and takes off for the wars, which he views as an inviting...