SOURCE: "Clear as Day," in The Spectator, Vol. 266, No. 8486, March 9, 1991, pp. 35-6.

Peter Hall has directed a charming, intelligent and enjoyable production of Twelfth Night. These qualities, by themselves, may not satisfy the dwindling band of diehards pursuing novelty or deeply topical reinterpretations of Shakespeare. Feste is not projected as a proto-Green, nor is Malvolio a Shi'ite Muslim. Instead, the play's delicate shifting moods and its magnificent language are, on the whole, allowed to operate upon us with a minimum of interference.

Timothy O'Brien has designed a Caroline Illyria. In Orsino's court a chandelier hangs above dark-stained floor-boards. Everyone wears Cavalier costume. Beyond the court is a glorious autumnal prospect—apple trees and falling brown leaves—which dips down to a stretch of mist-shrouded water.

After Orsino's opening. 'If music be the food of love …' (a speech, and indeed a performance, handled with rather too much self-mockery...