Dr Jacques COULARDEAU I remember this play from my university days. It is supposed to be a comedy and is in many ways though there is a tragic side to it. The tragedy is a tempest, one more tempest will you say. For sure Shakespeare loves tempests and storms. This one both brings a couple of twins, sister and brother, Viola and Sebastian, to a strange country and estranges them so that each one thinks the other died in the tempest. That estranged couple then meets with another couple that is so pathetic we could laugh at it if they were not so self-indulgent in their love and refusal of love. Love of the man, Duke Orsino, for the woman Olivia who rejects that love. Orsino is using then the services of Viola to bring his love messages to Olivia. Viola is disguised as a boy, a eunuch she says, and Olivia falls in love with "him" and of course still refuses Orsino.After a lot of ado with a clown and several funny characters who are experts in being drunk all the time, especially in the wee hours, some battles and scuffles among the servants that bring one to prison, the two main couples come face to face and discover the disguise of Viola, the existence of a real boy that looks just like her to which Olivia had had herself betrothed by some priest in the afternoon. And the reconciliation comes when Olivia accepts to marry Sebastian and Orsino decides to forgive Olivia and marry Viola. And the four can go out as two recomposed couples from two sundered couples or pairs and one clandestine fifth couple. Who said Shakespeare was not complex and multifaceted, the first quality of a diamond, isn't it? This is rather simple as for social and cultural, emotional and tragic density. But this play is one of the good comedies because of the sad beginning and the theme of the storm which is a favorite theme among all English fans. We must also admit that the clown Feste is a great one. But he does not get into long witty soliloquies. He is in short and to the point with humorous remarks and pokes like: "Marry, sir, they praise me and make an ass of me. Now my foes tell me plainly I am an ass: so that by my foes, sir, I profit in the knowledge of myself, and by my friends I am abuse'd: so that, conclusions to be as kisses, if your four negatives make your two affirmatives, why, then the worse for my friends and the better for my foes." He loses his fours and his twos, he literally loosens them out of shape. And the repetition of "ass" is multiplied by the two double oxymorons that follow.The trick the servants play on Olivia's Steward Malvolio is a very practical joke of course and he is fooled. The letter to fool him starts with a riddle that is all the more intriguing because it does not mean anything at all: MALVOLIO. (Reads) "I may command where I adore; / But silence, like a Lucrece knife, / With bloodless stroke my heart doth gore: / M, O, A, I, doth sway my life." And of course he is blinded by that riddle he cannot understand and into which he projects his own name. We can believe it is an anagram of Revelation 1:8: "I am the alpha and the omega" IMAO. And Malvolio falls in that trap because of his self-love, a defect if not a sin of importance in England at the time. (Cf. Inge Leimberg, "M.O.A.I." Trying to Share the Joke in Twelfth Night 2.5, available on the site: uni-tuebingen.de/uni/nec/leimberg11.htm#17) Shakespeare, to make sure his audience would follow sets some chorus-like group of eavesdroppers that lead us towards that biblical interpretation and apparently the King James Version of the Bible published in 1611, twelve years before the publication of Twelfth Night. We could wonder if that twelve was a pure coincidence. But the eavesdropping echo is giving indications in that direction of a biblical anagram fed to an illiterate servant imbued with his self-love.And the message is of course foolish: (Reads) 'If this fall into thy hand, revolve. In my stars I am above thee; but be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em. Thy Fates open their hands; let thy blood and spirit embrace them; and, to inure thyself to what thou art like to be, cast thy humble slough and appear fresh. Be opposite with a kinsman, surly with servants; let thy tongue tang arguments of state; put thyself into the trick of singularity: she thus advises thee that sighs for thee. Remember who commended thy yellow stockings, and wish'd to see thee ever cross-garter'd. I say, remember. Go to, thou art made, if thou desir'st to be so; if not, let me see thee a steward still, the fellow of servants, and not worthy to touch Fortune's fingers. Farewell. She that would alter services with thee, THE FORTUNATE-UNHAPPY." And of course the yellow cross-gartered stockings are visual fun.To say that this play is not the great rhetorical witty soliloquies or dialogues of many other plays (The Winter's Tale for one), but the whole action is constantly ordained and enlightened with such witty remarks that are supposed to be light and in fact are slightly more complex than just their surface.A play that deserve some watching or reading it over and over.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Paris 8 Saint Denis, University Paris 12 Créteil, CEGID

Alain English One of Shakespeare's best known romantic comedies (how modern romcoms could do these days with more mix-ups and mistaken identities), this one nevertheless fails to deliver.It's studio-bound setting severely constricts the action, it's sheer obviousness hampering the suspension of disbelief. Micheal Thomas and Felicity Kendal play the separated twins Sebastian and Viola, but they look too dissimilar to really convince in their roles, Thomas being at least two inches taller than Kendal - it is stretching the plot too much to believe that somebody could mistake one for the other.Alec McCowen plays humiliated manservant Malvolio. He speaks nicely enough but his entire performance is far too restrained. The scene where he is dressed in cross-gartered yellow stockings in a failed bid to impress Olivia (Sinead Cusack) lacks the punch it needs to make it truly hilarious. The other comic characters such as Robert Hardy's Toby Belch cannot compensate. Trevor Peacock has been excellent in other roles in this series but his Feste here is completely ineffective.A worthy effort as ever, but a modern setting and better casting would have much improved things.

Joannah Hansen This movie was absolutely delightful. It was a lovely introduction to Shakespeare, for ( if I remember correctly at a distance of 20-something years ) the 12-or-13 year old that I was back then. ( I stayed up way past midnight so that I could see the end of it - it was lucky that I was on holiday at the time! )The casting was excellent, especially the actors chosen to play Viola and Sebastian ( they looked like they were related! ), and Malvolio. The sets were well done, and the costuming ( again from the distance of too many years ) was good. The entire production was just charming.I would dearly like to see this movie again, if anyone knows where to get a copy of it. ( Video or DVD )

holycow-4 I've seen quite a bit of Shakespeare in my lifetime, but not as finely done as this one.The definitive actress in this was Felicity Kendal... She played the twins parts elegantly and was incredible in her interpretation and presentation.When I saw this, I promised myself I'd remember the name... It stuck with me... 7 years after this showing, I married... 10 years after viewing, the second "Felicity Kendal" was created and named...If you haven't guessed, it's worth seeing. If anyone happens upon a tape of this or any other Felicity Kendal shows, feel free to contact me.