The Merry Wives of Windsor
Even the most hardcore Bardolator would have to acknowledge that in a hierarchy of Shakespeare’s works, The Merry Wives of Windsor comes fairly low, being a hokey ass, canonically illogical spin off from the Henry IV plays. Essentially it offered the beloved character of Sir John Falstaff a brand new adventure, but one that lacked the pathos and grit of his original appearances, and also sidesteps the fact that he'd died some 200 years before the manifestly ‘present day’-set Merry Wives.
It’s pretty funny, though, which is why it remains more performed than some of the Bard’s sloggier rarities – this is the second time it’s been staged during Michelle Terry’s tenure in charge of the Globe. And frankly it’s like a red rag to a bull for Globe deputy Sean Holmes, whose keen sense of the ironic and the ersatz has repeatedly drawn him to Shakespeare’s dafter comedies over and above the serious stuff.
And it doesn’t get dafter than Merry Wives, a flawed play Holmes has done precious little to ‘fix’. Indeed, one might argue that his production actually aggressively takes the piss out of it. On a patterned Grace Smart set that looks like Cath Kidson having a meltdown, a series of glorious eccentrics deliver their lines in wilfully stilted fashion, frequently blaring out particularly prosperous individual phrases in a way that is entirely predicated on getting a laugh at Shakespeare’s expense. Lines like ‘You Banbury cheese!’ bring the house down.
As Falstaff, Globe mainstay George...
