All's Well That Ends Well

This is a Shakespeare play I've only seen once before, when Judi Dench played the Countess of Rossillion for the RSC in a Gregory Doran production five years ago.  I remember the lanky Guy Henry as an amusing Parolles.  Having now seen the National Theatre's version, directed by Marianne Elliott, I'm inclined to the view that the Bard probably wrote it in a hurry for a deadline. 'You want it by TUESDAY?? Okay, but it's going to be a problem play.  Are you happy with that?'  There's a gulling scene when the soldiers gang up on the cowardly Parolles which seems like a pale imitation of the much funnier tricks played on Malvolio in Twelfth Night and Falstaff in Henry IV Part i.  Elliott is a bold and adventurous director:  she was jointly responsible for the NT's wonderful War Horse, as well as directing a terrific Saint Joan, Therese Raquin and Pillars of the Community.  And she directed a very good RSC Much Ado About Nothing a couple of years ago set in 1950s Cuba. Here she turns All's Well That Ends Well into an unorthodox fairy tale, with a dream-like Gothic set by Rae Smith and mostly Victorian costumes.  It's a concept that works very well at the start, when Claire Higgins as the Countess, Michelle Terry as Helena, George Rainsford as Bertram and Oliver Ford Davies as the King of France have some wonderful scenes.  Terry's lowly status as a mere gentlewoman in the Countess's household is rightly emphasised, and the 19th century style helps emphasise the social distances.  Bertram is a mere youth, horrified to be pushed into marriage before he has sowed his wild oats.  Rainsford looks like a young public schoolboy who's destined for Sandhurst but is sent off to spend a gap year at the King's court;  his mum thinks it's a better idea than hanging around on the beach in Cornwall with all the other young Hooray Henries.  I liked his performance a lot, and I was equally enthused by Michelle Terry, whose portrayal of the virginal-but-feisty Helena is audible, touching and very convincing. Her scenes with Higgins in the first half of the play are excellently played.  Unfortunately Elliott's fairy tale concept seems to unravel once the play shifts from France to Italy, possibly because she lets the designer's imagination run riot in directions where it shouldn't go.  The 19th century is ditched for dresses and scenery that seem to be borrowed from 1950s Italy and La Dolce Vita, with a flashing sign saying BAR.  This kind of eclecticism may make perfect sense in theory, but it ends up making the style of the play incoherent.  There's a more serious problem with the comic characters Parolles and Lavatch. Conleth Hill is a fine actor but seems to have strayed in from some other production as Parolles, costumed like some middle-aged rock star with an Alice band over his flowing grey locks.  A kind of Flashman character with a bit of imperial swagger and a big moustache might have fitted in much better with the 19th century concept.  Lavatch, who seems to be the least funny of all Shakespeare's fools, wears a woolly dressing gown like Noel Coward on a cold night.  The second half has some excellent moments, such as the seduction of Bertram by Diana and Helena, both kitted out with feline ears and fluffy tails.  But the fairytale magic of the play's opening doesn't survive this sort of treatment.