Twelfth Night

Twins Viola and Sebastian (played by Gillian Jones) are shipwrecked and separated on the coast of Illyria. They think each other dead. Viola disguises herself as a boy and gets a job with Orsino (Ivar Kants). She is deputed to deliver messages of love to Jacquy Phillips, who falls in love with the beardless youth. Meanwhile....

It's one of Shakespeare's gender-bending comedies. In the original productions, the women's roles were taken by men, and so we would have seen some beardless youth dressed as a girl, disguising himself as a beardless youth. Nowadays, of course, they skip the first part.

In any case, this production started off with the Australian National Theater as a modern dress production with the setting and musical interludes suggesting some Caribbean island. The performer best known to worldwide audiences is Geoffrey Rush, and he does well with Sir Andrew Aguecheeks. However, the performing honors go to John Wood as Sir Toby Belch, and Kerry Walker as Feste. Wood is excellent as the rundown, self-indulgent, boozy uncle of Miss Phillips, while Miss Walker distinguishes herself with singing the songs, and her sad, observant eyes.

There were some troubles with the sound track, which was out of synchronization with the visual elements, and the rest of the performances often seem to sputter over Shakespeare's language. While there are better versions available (the 1970 BBC production which features Alec Guinness is my favorite recorded adaptation), this will do very nicely for those who, like me, enjoy Shakespeare's comedies.

A classic Australian theatre production is given this film version, that almost works. It is stage bound - but the set is gorgeous, the costumes colourful and the cast excellent.

But it all seems a little slow and over-blown, even laboured.

Great Aussie cast headed by a radiant Gillian Jones as both Viola and Sebastian - some neat camera work makes their reunion work. Also of special note is Geoffrey Rush as Andrew Aguecheek.

Worth a look, but not completely successful.

The pretentiousness of the lead actor was suffocating. It sounded like he memorized all the words and recited them correctly. The movie was absolutely UNWATCHABLE!!! Some of the characters, notably the Falstaffian type, were trying too hard to be "cute". Edward de Vere would be rolling over in his grave. I have seen my share of movies adapted from the plays of Shakespeare and this one stunk up the whole room. The production design, additionally, seemed to have the action take place in the 17th or even 18th century, even though Edward de Vere was in Rugasa (read:Dubrovnik, aka the unnamed city in the play) around 1575. All in all, a thorough disappointment.

Somebody's badly screwed up here. This adaptation has been confused with Kenneth Branagh's 1988 TV version: http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt0324342/

The posters shown at the top are for the Branagh production. There are even reviews of the Branagh production on this page. The Amazon link takes you to a page for the DVD of the Branagh production: the Armfield film isn't out on DVD. Please be wary: these are two different adaptations!

I'd love to see the Armfield version if anybody can get me a copy; if you have one to sell, please PM me! For anyone who hasn't seen Branagh's Twelfth Night, I can recommend it: it's one of the best versions I've seen. Branagh has said he'd like to adapt Twelfth Night for the big screen some day; here's hoping he does.

I saw this while studying the play for GCSEs through Australian friends who were very into Shakespeare, and while I did enjoy this, I found Trevor Nunn and Kenneth Branagh's versions more lively-paced and witty. Mostly the dialogue is witty and clever like it should be, but there are a few moments where it did feel laboured(Orsino) or over-blown(Malvolio and occasionally Sir Toby). The pacing at times did seem a little on the slow side too. However, it is neatly filmed and has sumptuous costuming and settings. The cast are great, Olivia is very moving and Sir Toby is played by gusto if occasionally slightly over-played, but for me the standouts were the Viola/Sebastian of Gillian Jones, looking absolutely radiant, Geoffrey Rush whose Sir Andrew is note-perfect and the interesting Feste of Kelly Walker(played by a woman instead of the usual man, but this worked I felt). Overall, worth watching if not the best version. Sadly it is hard to find, and I would have asked to have borrowed my friends' copy to try and upload it or something if I hadn't since lost contact them, and having lost their contact details and them not understanding computers I have no means of trying. If you can find it though, give it a look. 7/10 Bethany Cox