This is only the third Shakespearean comedy I have reviewed (I do NOT count The Merchant of Venice as a comedy, instead I classify it as a Shakespearean problem play) and I am really mixed on it. On the one hand I am not big on romantic-comedies or rom-coms. This is a problem since Shakespeare loved rom-coms. This play is THE rom-com. On the other hand, this play may have the best and most complex female character of any of Shakespeare's plays. I thought Beatrice of Much Ado About Nothing and Portia of TMOV were amazing, but Viola is wittier and more balanced (all things considered) than both. She and Feste are by far the smartest and most cunning characters in this play and capture every scene they are in. 
 Like in "Much Ado" you have the stock Romantic or rather unrequited couple Orsio and Olivia who are boring and are simply plot devices to bring the romance. Luckily this plot of deception, and especially the sub-plot involving Malvolio bring the funny in spades. I feel like the way Shakespeare wrote these characters would make them more suitable for a suspense thriller, specifically the interactions between Viola Cesario and Feste. Again the Malvolio sub-plot could have and should have been its own pure comedy play, but we had to have love triangles and unrequited angsting-comes with the romantic territory. 
 So with all that being said...I actually really like it. Though I wanted to rate this average because others did and I did nit-pick, I really ended up enjoying this as the play went on. Much Ado About Nothing will still be my favorite of the Bard's slapstick for now, this was not that bad. For reference I read from William Shakespeare: Complete Plays and for visual I watched the 1988 television adaption of Kenneth Branagh's 1987 stage adaptation of the play. 
 A Great while ago the world begun,/With, hey, ho, the wind and the rain:-/But that's all one, our play is done,/And we'll strive to please you every day.