If you count this play and his two outings in the Henry's then Falstaff has more lines than anyone else in Shakespeare. But, ofcourse, the Merry Wives is often not counted - written off as a curious aberration, somehow not up to the normal bardish standards, perhaps knocked off quickly for Elizabeth - a big Falstaff fan... And it is certainly light, but who cares when it shines this brightly?
       Christopher Luscombe's production sets out to prove that with the Merry Wives of Windsor Shakespeare invented the sitcom, and he makes his case with aplomb. Fawlty Towers, Dads Army, Carry On - even at one point Sex and The City, they are all here. This is a middle class sex comedy with a romcom subplot where the guy eventually gets the girl, and it works terribly well in The Globe where it is being staged for the first time.
       Christopher Benjamin plays the old rogue with good humoured spirit, you can quite understand why after being tossed out with the dirty laundry into the river the first time and being given a sound beating the next, he gamely agrees to chase the merry wives one more time. His attempt to woo Mistress Page with his cranky old knees and still more cranky lyre playing was painfully funny. When the coup de grace is delivered and the old fool is eventually exposed for all the suburb to see, Falstaff's fall doesn't seem so hard as his easy bonhomie cushions the impact.
       But despite Benjamin's strong Falstaff, it was Andrew Havill as the jealous husband Frank Ford who walked off with the play. Where Hamlet soliloquises about 'making mouths at an invisible event', Ford shakes two fists at the fates - quite literally, and jumps up and down at the same time. He is twisted with neurotic frustration, totally brittle with absurd jealousy, driven to deliriously pointless physical violence, and even has a tussle with a laundry basket with a body in it... it is Basil Fawlty in a Tudor setting. It is knowingly done, there is even an article in the programme claiming Cleese must have read Merry Wives of Windsor, but wether or not that is true it certainly proves the point that many of our comic archetypes find their origin in this overlooked play... playing, one suspects, to very full feelgood houses at the Globe throughout this summer.
Charlie Taylor