ENTERTAINMENT : Dustin Hoffman Panned as Shylock

LONDON —  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.”