SOURCE: "Sher Madness," in Punch, Vol. 293, No. 7647, July 22, 1987, pp. 49-50.

Stratford's new main-stage Twelfth Night, directed by Bill Alexander, has one of those sets (here by Kit Surrey) that do most of the acting before the players have a chance to take up residence. "Which country, friend, is this?" "Illyria, lady" is thus an odd opening exchange, since we are clearly in downtown Paxos or on some neighbouring Greek island where you constantly expect to find Zorba setting up a dancing academy for the tourists. A hugely picturesque, sunbaked and white-walled little square, with its own functional water pump and a candlelit shrine to Olivia's dead brother, might not appear to be the most likely location for this traditionally chilly play, and its permanence means that we cannot actually move with Feste from Orsino's court to Olivia's mansion or Malvolio's gaol: in order for anything to happen or...