Stephen Fry in Twelfth Night, Globe Theatre, first review Phew! First one over," compulsive Tweeter and national poppet Stephen Fry told his four million followers after Twelfth Night, Tim Carroll's glorious all-male, period-dress revival, first seen 10 years ago, was blissfully reborn, with Fry unveiling his Malvolio and making a long-overdue stage comeback. The Globe is the best theatre I've ever played in. Thank you, wonderful audience," he added, acknowledging the thunderous applause. I witnessed this as a paying audience member - critics are not invited until after the sell-out run here has ended and the production moves to the West End. But I wanted to be there: this marks Fry's return to the boards following the ill-fated premiere of Simon Gray's Cell Mates in 1995. Seized by doubt and depression, Fry fled at the end of its first week, dooming the show. It's brave of him, therefore, to return in a role around which the spectre of mental illness flits. Gulled into making a fool of himself in front of his mistress, Olivia, the self-important steward winds up teased and tormented in a makeshift madhouse. Although he doesn't dig - as yet - especially deep into that torment, Fry already charts the pride and humiliating fall of the man with understated actorly elan. Phew, indeed. At first, he's sniffy and scholastic, hunched over ledgers. He reproves Colin Hurley's flatulent Belch and Roger Lloyd Pack's risibly ruff-encircled Aguecheek with finger-wagging aplomb before nimbly shedding the gravitas. Misconstruing the letter planted by Maria (Paul Chahidi, excellent) he skips off stage, then, absurd in yellow stockings, brings the house down in his disastrous wooing scene, approaching his mistress from behind and giving pelvic emphasis to the line "Some have greatness thrust upon them." This causes hilarious consternation to race across the regally composed visage of Mark Rylance's ghost-pale Olivia. Although this is ensemble theatre at its finest, it's Rylance's contribution that puts the production among all-time Shakespeare greats. Tremulous of voice, he glides about as if on castors, performing three-point turns just to sit down. The breakdown of this mournful machine under the androgynous spell of Johnny Flynn's Viola, until Olivia - in common with Liam Brennan's Orsino - is flustered and delirious in Illyria, goes to the heart of the play's tragicomic strangeness and love's bittersweet mystery. Frankly unmissable. Transfers to the Apollo, Shaftesbury Avenue, from Nov 2.