SOURCE: A review of Twelfth Night in Punch, Vol. 228, April 20, 1955, p. 507.

It seemed fair to expect a great deal of a Twelfth Night produced by John Gielgud and containing a Malvolio by Laurence Olivier, a Viola by Vivien Leigh. This opening production at Stratford is, of course, an improvement on anything we saw there in last year's meagre season, but considering the talents now assembled it remains strangely disappointing. Sir Laurence has chosen to give Malvolio a rather tortured lisp, as of an aspiring barrow-boy earnestly improving his English at night-school; and though the trick of speech is mastered with the utmost skill, it is difficult to see how it helps. Again, his Malvolio is subdued in the early scenes to nothing more than a reasonable disciplinarian, and is therefore not a man whose pretensions in any way justify the hatred of his fellows. He is very funny...