Ruth Leon recommends…The Merry Wives of Windsor – Royal Shakespeare Company
Ruth Leon recommendsThe Merry Wives of Windsor – Royal Shakespeare Company
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Tradition has it that Sir John Falstaff was Queen Elizabeth 1’s favourite character and that, after seeing Henry IV Part I, she asked Shakespeare to write a play about Falstaff in love. The result was The Merry Wives of Windsor, his only contemporary play, set in an ordinary English town, in his own time, among middle class people. There’s not a king, earl or duke in sight and the only knight is Sir John. Although the more toffee-nosed among the critical fraternity have always been a bit sniffy about it, it’s one of my favourites and arguably the funniest of all Shakespeare’s comedies, especially in this production for the RSC, directed by Fiona Laird and designed by Lez Brotherston.
I don’t know what Queen Elizabeth’s reaction to it was but, as the RSC reopens in Stratford upon Avon this week, post-pandemic, it’s worth celebrating the Company’s archive of past productions. This The Merry Wives of Windsor stars David Troughton as Falstaff and Ishia Bennison as Mistress Quickly. The ‘wives’ are played by Beth Cordingly, Karen Fishwick, and Rebecca Lacey.
To jog your memory, Sir John Falstaff plans to hustle his way to comfortable retirement by seducing the wives of two wealthy men. But it’s the women of Windsor who pull the strings in this story…
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I’ve never been to the play, but have been lucky enough to see a production of Sir John in Love, which is very rarely performed, in Toronto in about 1970 or thereabouts.
I see there is now a performance on YT, by the BBC Concert Orchestra, apparently from 1958. ENO did not perform it till 2006.
A bawdy hoot when done for laughs.
When would it be done otherwise?