In Our Time: Twelfth Night, or What You Will

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Twelfth Night, or What You Will, one of Shakespeare's great comedies, which plays in the space between marriage, love and desire. By convention a wedding means a happy ending and here there three, but neither Orsino nor Viola, Olivia nor Sebastian know much of each other's true character and even the identities of the twins Viola and Sebastian have only just been revealed to their spouses to be. These twins gain some financial security but it is unclear what precisely the older Orsino and Olivia find enduringly attractive in the adolescent objects of their love. Meanwhile their hopes and illusions are framed by the fury of Malvolio, tricked into trusting his mistress Olivia loved him and who swears an undefined revenge on all those who mocked him