The challenge with the Merry Wives of Windsor is to keep the audience engaged for the duration of the show. Sir John Falstaff is a wonderful character, and the play contains highly entertaining moments. Compared to, say, Macbeth or Othello, the plot is pretty basic. Falstaff (200 years after his natural time) arrives in Windsor out of pocket. He plots to seduce two married women in order to access their husbands’ money. Meanwhile the daughter of one of the women is to be married off to one of three men – two of whom are complete buffoons. It takes a lot of effort to make this show work well. I have seen previous productions that failed to grab viewers after the first few scenes.
      Christopher Luscombe’s production carries the audience all the way: through the interval, the second half, out the doors and into the river Thames. It rolls along merrily with Christopher Benjamin’s loveable rogue at the helm. Indeed it is hard to find fault with this production – it does everything one would hope for and more. The comic timing is impeccable, particularly in the scenes between Mistress Page (Serena Evans) and Mistress Ford (Sarah Woodward). The silly accents (Caius “By gar”) and camp comedy (Slender: “I came yonder at Eton to marry Mistress Anne Page, and she’s a great lubberly boy.”) had the audience laughing uncontrollably. Andrew Havill is fantastic as the insanely jealous Mr Ford, driven to despair by his wife’s possible infidelity. The scene with him rifling through the laundry basket vainly searching for Falstaff is hilarious.
      The original set includes a quaint little garden walkway bisecting the pit and dividing the audience in half. This brings the action closer to the spectators. One of the cast suddenly goes fishing off this walkway into the audience.
      Music underpins the production effectively, highlighting a kiss here (with a triangle ‘ting’) or a bell chiming the hours of Falstaff’s engagement and occasionally breaking out into lusty song (Ever Among So Merrily from Henry IV Part 2). The instruments are Elizabethan but most of the music, composed by Nigel Hess, is modern and fits well.
      The final scene in the woods is enchanting, with beautiful costumes, more jolly music and funny little fairies played by children, who prance about and terrify the be-horned Falstaff into repenting of his crimes.
      This is what the Globe was made for – lusty boisterous comedy and high jinks. It rained once or twice during the show and you could almost see steam coming off the audience and hear the relief. Laughing is hot work.
Edward Glass