‘Melancholy magic’: how Judi Dench and a host of stars came under the spell of the greatest comedy in history

The Twelfth Night Reunion gathers some of the grandest names in British theatre, including Simon Callow and Stephen Fry, to explain why Shakespeare’s play continues to bewitch audiences

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any of us decline into our dotage. Actors slip into their anecdotage. Two of the best programmes in the rather arid TV Christmas schedules featured Judi Dench touchingly reminiscing about her love of Shakespeare. The great dame is also one of the glittering ensemble in The Twelfth Night Reunion, a one-off event conceived and hosted by Gyles Brandreth and recorded at the Orange Tree in Richmond, London, a year ago, where a group of actors share their memories of the play.

Now available on YouTube, it is like an upmarket version of The Graham Norton Show with two heart-stopping moments.

The format is simple. Each actor is invited to describe his or her first encounter with the play and their experience of being in it. Simon Callow vividly recalls the “melancholy magic” of John Barton’s legendary 1969 RSC production. When cast as the drunken Sir Toby in a later National Theatre production, Callow reveals that he discovered “that the character was basically my father”. Dame Judi, Viola in the Barton version, describes a famous bit of comic business created by the Malvolio, Donald Sinden. In the garden scene, Sinden glanced at a sundial and then at his fob watch and realised the two showed different times. After looking up at the sun, Sinden effortfully heaved the sundial into a new position until it showed the correct Malvolio time.