Richard Morrison at the Millennium Centre, Cardiff [Times Online, 13 February 2006]

THERE are plenty of Figaros around in this Mozart anniversary year, but only one in which the stage is draped, for some mysterious reason, in brown wrapping paper. When Neil Armfield’s production was new, a few seasons back, my distinguished former colleague Rodney Milnes hated every overblown minute of it. I share a little of his pain. To say that Armfield’s humour is broad is like saying that the Atlantic is wet. Hardly a scene goes by without a character grabbing his own crotch or somebody else’s.