Thursday, January 03, 2013

Play review - "The Merry Wives of Windsor" by William Shakespeare

I didn't think much of this - I can imagine that in the right actor hands Falstaff would come alive on stage (or screen) but I found him wearying here, especially as he doesn't have that much to do, and there's no war. He's trying to get out of debt by seducing women, but as they're both married how is that going to work? There's too many characters for this to be much fun on the page - there's Falstaff, his assistants, the hot girl, the three guys after her, the two married women, their husbands, various servants, and so on. Much running around the castle, hopping in laundry baskets and pretending to be fairies.

It's entirely possibly this plays a treat when you see it but I haven't so I can't go off that.

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