Last night, I saw Love's Labour's Lost in a splendid production put on by the drama students of Dawson College. The performances were exuberant, filled with discovery and humour; I can't remember the last time I heard an audience laugh out loud so frequently during a play. And what a funny play it is, in both common senses of the word. It's not one of Shakespeare's most popular, I think it's safe to say. In fact, William Hazlitt once wrote, "If we were to part with any of the author's comedies, it should be this". I learned of this unfortunate moment (in an otherwise fine career), and much more about the play's history and contents, in H.R. Woudhuysen's excellent introduction to the Arden Shakespeare edition (1998), which I'll be writing about in the next couple of posts. For now, let me recommend this: the next time that you hear of a student production of a Shakespeare play - go see it. I wish William Hazlitt had seen this one.