Twelfth Night | Criticism

This literature criticism consists of approximately 4 pages of analysis & critique of Twelfth Night.

Twelfth Night | Criticism

This literature criticism consists of approximately 4 pages of analysis & critique of Twelfth Night.
This section contains 1,010 words
(approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy the Critical Review by Irving Wardle

SOURCE: "Surprisingly Lively Night," in The Times, London, April 11, 1988, p. 14.

John Carlisle's Malvolio (replacing Antony Sher) is the only major cast change in Bill Alexander's production since Jeremy Kingston reviewed it in Stratford last July; but the immediate impression is that its characters are meeting for the first time.

Nothing quite fits. There is a distracted, hollow-eyed Viola (Harriet Walter) who suggests more the last act of a tragedy than the opening of a comedy. Donald Sumpter's Orsino is a grizzled autocrat with none of the expected marks of a romantic lover. In years, at least, he is a match for Deborah Findlay's Olivia; but it then comes as a shock to meet her uncle Toby (Roger Allam) who could be half her age.

Feste (Bruce Alexander) is another middle-aged figure who pushes the privileges of folly to the limit of sardonic bombast and haunts the Illyrian courts...

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This section contains 1,010 words
(approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy the Critical Review by Irving Wardle
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Critical Review by Irving Wardle from Gale. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved.