Shakespeare Globe

The Merry Wives of Windsor

by William Shakespeare
Until 5 October

***** "Luscombe’s production brims with humanity, ingenuity and irresistible charm, and boasts a magnificent Falstaff in Christopher Benjamin... Serena Evans and Sarah Woodward make one of the funniest double acts I have ever seen on the stage... As we all stood up to applaud, I felt that this was not just theatre but the capital at its very best" Sunday Telegraph

***** "Andrew Havill is an excellent Ford... A hilarious play of pride, prejudice and insecurity written by the Ayckbourn of the Elizabethans. The Globe at its best" Sunday Times

**** "Christopher Luscombe's highly entertaining production... this revival is zestfully alert to how Merry Wives anticipates modern sitcom... deliciously inventive comic business is a joy" The Independent

**** "The Globe has a hit on its hands... A very enjoyable, teasing night out" The Guardian

"Blissfully enjoyable new production... Christopher Luscombe directs a sunny, funny and palpably affectionate production, cleverly designed by Janet Bird... Christopher Benjamin plays Falstaff with rich, ripe panache... An exceptionally strong supporting company... This is one of the most enjoyable productions I have ever seen at the Globe and looks like the feel-good hit of the summer" The Telegraph

**** "The acting displays an infectious relish... A wonderfully warm comedy, stuffed to bursting with belly laughs" The Times

**** "With a delightful set, and spot-on musical accompaniment, this is a quite, quite lovely show" Time Out Critics' Choice

**** "The best and freshest work I've seen at the Globe... Indisputably Shakespeare's jolliest comedy... Merriness unbridled" Evening Standard

The fat knight Sir John Falstaff imagines that Mistress Ford and Mistress Page are both taken with him and so, attracted as much by their husbands’ money as their personal charms, he decides to woo them both. But the women are up to the old lecher’s tricks and turn the tables on him with a series of humiliating assignations, midnight terrors and a very damp, extremely smelly laundry basket.

Gutsy, colloquial and bustling with vivid characters, The Merry Wives of Windsor is a brilliantly constructed farce and the only comedy Shakespeare set in his native land. It is also the ancestor of English bourgeois comedy and gave birth to a tradition that reaches down to the modern TV sitcom.

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