Fashions and audiences change but, at the time, it felt like a complete approach to Shakespeare and delivered the play fully to me. When Barrie Ingham’s Aguecheek said: “I was adored once, too” – one of the saddest lines in Shakespeare – I don’t think I’m exaggerating, but even at that age, I knew what I was watching was more than a vehicle for visual gags.

All sorts of things about that production and era are unrepeatable, not least a permanent company of first-rate actors who were trained by Barton. It’s not possible to reconstruct that. I’m not being nostalgic; things evolve, and lots about the profession is better now.

The final scene I found then – and continue to find – as moving and satisfying as anything in Shakespeare, particularly the reconciliation of the twins. I don’t think it’s sentimental to acknowledge that this is written by a father who had twin children and who had lost his twin son. When Sebastian says, “Were you a woman, as the rest goes even, I should my tears let fall upon your cheek”, I’ve always cried at that scene, and things like that become more and more profound the older you get.

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Analysis – David Benedict

It’s not just Nicholas Hytner who recognised this 1969 classic production as delivering all the darkness as well as the light of Shakespeare’s great comedy.

As Robert W Speaight wrote at the time: “All comedies are comedies of errors, and in Twelfth Night, the mistaken identities are the least of them. Mr Barton and the Royal Shakespeare Company left us thinking very hard about the others.”

In brown velvet and a ruff topped off with red hair, Judi Dench’s gallant, open-hearted Viola was universally regarded as a triumph, bringing focused energy to the role while forever illuminating layers of meaning.

But the key to the production lay in the vision and guidance of director John Barton, a founding member of the RSC who worked there for over four decades. He ensured that the comedy level was high but also presented everything in an autumnal light, as seen through the eyes of Emrys James’ Feste.