ENTERTAINMENT : Dustin Hoffman Panned as Shylock

Dustin Hoffman received mixed reviews today after his British stage debut as Shylock in Shakespeare’s play, “The Merchant of Venice.”

While the production won cheers Thursday night from a celebrity-studded first-night audience at London’s Phoenix Theater, critic Irving Wardle wrote in The Times of London today:

“All the clamorous hype and slavering expectation is a poor preparation for the modest Shylock who arrived on the Phoenix stage last night. . . . Hoffman’s is much the most genial Shylock that I have seen.”

Jack Tinker wrote in the London tabloid the Daily Mail: “Without being great, he is most certainly good.”