Twelfth Night (1980 TV Movie) User Reviews

an excellent production

[mhk11 · 9/10 · 11 July 2015]

This is one of the best of the BBC's productions, with fine performances all around. The production succeeds in conveying the melancholy aspects of the play as well as its many comic elements. (Although Trevor Peacock has only a moderately good singing voice, its plangency is perfectly suited to the rather dark songs that Feste intones.) I'll register only two minor complaints. First, there are a few inappositely articulated lines. For example, Robert Lindsay inaptly utters an exclamation as a question in III.iv.133, and Alec McCowen at III.iv.35-6 incorrectly addresses a riposte to Olivia that should have been addressed to Maria. Second, quite a few of Feste's lines have been excised. Some of the deletions are well-judged, but most of them (especially in III.i and V.i) are regrettable. Still, these two small points of dissatisfaction detract very little from my enjoyment of an excellent rendering of this play.

Alec McCowen is superbly well suited for the role of Malvolio, as he highlights the character's combination of comicalness, poignancy, and rebarbativeness. Robert Hardy is an outstanding Toby Belch, and Ronnie Stevens is equally good as Andrew Aguecheek. Trevor Peacock as Feste and Robert Lindsay as Fabian are splendid in their crucial supporting roles. As I've said above, my only regret about the performance by Peacock is that he was deprived of quite a few of his lines. Felicity Kendal lives up to one's expectations of her with a wonderful performance as Viola/Cesario, and Clive Arrindell (with whose work I have no other familiarity) is a fine Orsino. Everybody else in the cast likewise contributes admirably to this wonderful production.

Got Me Interested In Shakespeare

[derek_blacklockuk · 9/10 · 17 June 2021]

I am not a student of Shakespeare or knowledgeable.

This play moved me to tears of joy and sadness.

I have never found Shakespeare comedies funny before but this performance was excellent and funny.

The stand out performances for me were Sinead Cusack and Felicity Kendal.

I always knew Cusack was an excellent actor but Kendal was a revelation.

Buy and enjoy.

Limited by it's studio setting...

[alainenglish · 8/10 · 27 February 2010]

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.

This movie sparked my interest in Shakespeare

[Joannah-2 · 10/10 · 28 December 2004]

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 )

My favourite Twelfth Night, alongside Brannagh's

[TheLittleSongbird · 10/10 · 6 June 2012]

Twelfth Night as of now is my favourite of Shakespeare's plays, and this is a truly delightful version, tying with Kenneth Branagh's 1988 adaptation as my favourite of the four versions so far seen(the other being the Nunn film and the hard to find 1987 Australia version, both good). The costumes and sets are charming and very sumptuous as well as some dark tinges to add some dimension to the play(if not as much as Brannagh's, which is the most successful at bringing this side out), with the photography suitably skillful. The writing is as witty and funny as ever, and the story still has its charm. Generally I thought the cast were great. Ronnie Stevens' Sir Andrew Aguecheek didn't have to go into falsetto as often as he did, but he was nonetheless amusing. Sinead Cusack is a moving Olivia and Clive Arrindal a dashing Orsino. Annette Crosbie is excellent as Maria and Robert Lindsay is a perfect Fabian as is Robert Hardy as the slovenly and often hilarious Sir Toby Belch. Trevor Peacock is decent as Feste(though I thought Branagh's Feste was more effective), Felicity Kendal is a charming and impish Viola and just about convinces as a boy and Alex McCowen is an obseque and indignant Malvolio. I also want to give this performance credit for making Antonio's desire for Sebastian believable and quite moving, something that could've fallen flat but didn't. Overall, if I had to choose which I just preferred out of this and Branagh's version, I say Branagh just edging it but this is a delightful version regardless. 9.5/10 Bethany Cox.

Stump the Critic - "Darned Near Perfect"

[tonstant viewer · 10/10 · 30 July 2006]

Generally, this space gets lists of good points, lists of bad points, a few irrelevant personal details, and if we're lucky, the reviewer's pet's reaction.

Well, this video is as close to perfect as you could hope for. A strong cast without a weak link, excellent pacing, gratifying visual design.... What am I going to complain about?

Um...Sir Andrew Aguecheek didn't have to go up into falsetto quite so often.

Ah...the sound engineers had trouble keeping up with the shouts and murmurs; perhaps if they had lowered the shouts and raised the murmurs....

Oh, just go ahead and watch it. It doesn't get any better than this.

So impressive I named a daughter after Felicity Kendal...

[holycow-4 · 10/10 · 20 November 1999]

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.

There are so much better versions of Twelfth Night

[The-Sarkologist · 6/10 · 5 January 2013]

I have never really been that impressed with the BBC Shakespeare and it is not so much because of the low budget but because the characterisations generally have not been all that good. Take for instance the Nunn production in 1996, the way the characters acted, and the expressions on their faces, added so much more life to the production than did the actors in this rather tired rendition. It seems as if the whole purpose was that they were simply acting out a Shakespearian play, and simply tried to let the fact that it was Shakespearian carry the day rather than the actors carrying the play. In a way, for all of Shakespeare's brilliance, the play will not carry itself, and even the best play will fall flat on its face if the actors do not actually give life to the play.

One of the things that stood out was that it was quite clear that Viola was a female, however I suspect that the reason that she was able to get away with having long hair was because the rest of the cast had long hair as well (with the exception of Olivia's drunken family members). What differentiated the sexes was not so much their hair but rather their dress, and by dressing as a male, Viola was able to pass herself off as a male, though it was quite clear that when she attempted to speak in a low voice she was putting it on. Fortunately her brother, Sebastian, also had long blonde hair, since one of the things that really does carry the play is when Olivia confuses Sebastian for Viola, but one again, the way Nunn did the play made it so much better.

Another thing that I noticed about the play (and not so much the film) was not only how Shakespeare is the master of the double entendre, or how Shakespeare can be incredibly dirty when he wants to be (and sometimes I wonder if the more sophisticated audiences actually get some of his cruder jokes) but how the saying 'being well hung', generally referring to the size of one's member, has been around as long as Shakespeare. Then again, there has been a bit of research done on the history of crude jokes, and I even have a book called 'Dirty Shakespeare' which goes through all of Shakespeare's dirty jokes.

As for a film, I probably would not recommend it. The Trevor Nunn version is actually available free on You Tube, so if you really have a hankering to watch Twelfth Night, then I would refer you to that play. This version can pretty much remain sitting on the dusty shelves of a forgotten corner of the video stores (though this one is on Youtube as well).

I am the Alpha and the Omega

[Dr_Coulardeau · 10/10 · 29 November 2010]

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

Film bends genders but not Shakespeare / Gorrie's wistful version of Twelfth Night

[eparis2 · 10/10 · 16 August 2022]

The straightforward paths of tradition and attention to textual detail may not always lead to striking originality, but they can, as in this case, beget an appropriately humorous and a nearly definitive version.

Filmed in and around an Elizabethan manor house, this production has the grace and authenticity of its setting.

Feste is so believable that he seems to have come with the house, not the acting company.

Felicity Kendall is reasonably boyish as Cesario, but attractive enough that we never lose sight of Viola.

Toby has enough heft and charm to pass as Falstaff's younger brother.

Malvolio is stuffy without becoming a caricature; Andrew is a dolt with touches of pathos; and Olivia is beautiful enough to excite the jealousy of any Viola.

A near-perfect adaptation.

[catjoes_creed · 10/10 · 9 December 2023]

With almost no lines left out and only two scenes transposed, this is the most faithful adaptation of the play that I've found. This makes it ideal for a student who wants to study it, or a teacher who wants to teach it. While it's not as lively or as colorful as the version with Helena Bonham Carter, and while the actor who plays Viola is completely unbelievable, physically, as a male, this is nevertheless the only version to turn to when teaching Shakespeare to a class. Robert Lindsay, as Fabian, is a joy, Clive Arindelle's Orsino is sufficiently haughty for a duke, and Alec McCowen plays Malvolio to a Tee. Robert Hardy's Sir Toby pulls off drunkenness (his face even looks blotchy) and Sir Andrew (Ronnie Stevens) is a perfect fop, and quite ridiculous.

Other than Viola, the only performance I don't care for is Trevor Peacock's Feste. I think the actor playing the Fool should bring a great deal more energy and depth to the role, but everyone else is great.