All's Well That Ends Well

[4] There is no evidence that All's Well That Ends Well was popular in Shakespeare's time and it has remained one of his lesser-known plays ever since, in part due to its unorthodox mixture of fairy tale logic, gender role reversals and cynical realism.

Some suggest that Bertram's conversion is meant to be sudden and magical in keeping with the play's 'clever wench performing tasks to win an unwilling higher-born husband' theme.

[10] Andrew Hadfield of the University of Sussex argues that contemporary audiences would readily have recognised Bertram's enforced marriage as a metaphor for the new requirement (1606) for Catholics to swear an Oath of Allegiance to Protestant King James.

Elijah Moshinsky in his BBC Television Shakespeare version in 1981 had his Bertram (Ian Charleson) give Helena a tender kiss and speak wonderingly.

[6] Modern productions are often promoted as vehicles for great mature actresses; recent examples have starred Judi Dench and Peggy Ashcroft, who delivered a performance of "entranc[ing]...worldly wisdom and compassion" in Trevor Nunn's sympathetic, "Chekhovian" staging at Stratford in 1982.

[6][12][13] In the BBC Television Shakespeare production she was played by Celia Johnson, dressed and posed as Rembrandt's portrait of Margaretha de Geer.

[15] Rehearsals at Drury Lane started in October 1741 but William Milward (1702–1742), playing the king, fell ill, and the opening was delayed until 22 January.

[16] This, together with unsubstantiated tales of more illnesses befalling other actresses during the run, gave the play an "unlucky" reputation, similar to that attached to Macbeth, which may have curtailed the number of revivals.

[19] The play, with plot elements drawn from romance and the ribald tale, depends on gender role conventions, both as expressed (Bertram) and challenged (Helena).

With evolving conventions of gender roles, Victorian objections centred on the character of Helena, who was variously deemed predatory, immodest and both "really despicable" and a "doormat" by Ellen Terry, who also—and rather contradictorily—accused her of "hunt[ing] men down in the most undignified way".

[20] Terry's friend George Bernard Shaw greatly admired Helena's character, comparing her with the New Woman figures such as Nora in Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House.

[6] The editor of the Arden Shakespeare volume summed up 19th-century repugnance: "everyone who reads this play is at first shocked and perplexed by the revolting idea that underlies the plot.