SOURCE: "Glandular Fever," in New Statesman, Vol. 97, No. 2518, June 22, 1979, pp. 928-29.

For some time now our directors have been conscientiously darkening what used to be regarded as Shakespeare's happiest comedy. We have had glum and scabrous Festes, and we have had Malvolios so cruelly teased that even the Belches—mean drunks and unprincipled predators to a man—have proved mildly shocked by their maltreatment. But these prison-house productions have obviously missed much, not least the interestingly erratic and even violent behaviour of some of the more romantic characters. In Illyria love is a sudden and alarming affliction, a variety of glandular fever virulent enough to send the mercury racing up and over the humiliation threshold:

Cesario, by the roses of the spring,
 By maidhood, honour, truth and everything,
 I love thee so that, maugre all thy pride,
 Nor wit nor reason can my passion hide.

It is, however...