Merry-Making, Wives or Not

We’ve all been there: the pox has left you scarred and partly bald, the only man you fancied behaved so badly that you had to have him beheaded, all your friends are dead, and you’re starting to feel a little ropey yourself. Talk about a bad case of the blues. What you need right now, more than anything, is a good old-fashioned, unashamedly shallow Rom-Com to take your mind off it all.

When mother of the nation, Queen Elizabeth I, found herself in precisely this situation she turned to her favourite playwright, Will Shaking-Speare, and demanded of him a light-hearted romp based around her favourite character, the fat knight John Falstaff.

Said play is, of course, the notoriously under-appreciated The Merry Wives of Windsor. And now, 400 years later, director Christopher Luscombe gives us a chance to see the mother of all feel-good-comedy sexed up to her full potential. This two and a half hour chucklefest, jam-packed with outrageously funny performances that has one full house after the other roaring with laughter, simply must be seen to be believed. So grab a programme, a cushion and a glass of excellent Pinot Noir at the Globe’s inordinately well-stocked bar and guffaw the blues away, Elizabethan slapstick style.

The Merry Wives of Windsor - Until October 5
Shakespeare’s Globe, 21 New Globe Walk, SE1 9DT
£5 - £33

by DH