The Merry Wives of Windsor Reviews
Super Fun
Oxford Times - Jo Duckles
Big knickers, fluffy fish and audience participation are not what I usually expect to see in a Shakespeare play. I was feeling a little grumpy after work when I arrived at Wadham College for the Oxford Shakespeare Company’s outdoor production of The Merry Wives of Windsor, but by the end of it I was in a fantastic mood.
The colourful costumes and wellchoreographed slapstick humour had me in stitches. The Merry Wives of Windsor is a comedy· tale about two men attempting to win the affections of one woman and one man attempting to win the money of two women’s husbands.
Welsh Parson Hugh Evans (Jules Blundell) and French Dr Caius (David Chittenden) are rivals over George Page’s daughter, Anne (Amy Standish). Meanwhile Sir John Falstaff (Dermot Canavan) has written identical love letters to Alice Ford (Paul Dinnen) and Meg Page (Howard Gossington). It had been raining all day before the outdoor performance in the gardens of Wadham College, and I was told the set had taken a real hammer. From where I was seated you really couldn’t tell, and the cast did an excellent job of not letting any soggy bits of set stop them doing their best.
There were points when it was clear things did not go to plan, but those things were worked into the show, as when Pistol (Ross Macdonald) lost his moustache. I wasn’t convinced that every time Falstaff’s wig came off was planned, but the cast used the hairy prop to full comic effect.
The whole show was hilarious, but one of the best scenes was the one in which Dr Caius, dragged out an unsuspecting audience member, on which he threatened to use a variety of weapons. Those included a fluffy fish he carried around with him at all times and used to terrify other cast members.
In another, which was incredibly surreal, the cast transformed themselves into fairies to torment Falstaff. At one point, audience members were even handed a pair of huge knickers by Nell Quickly (Simon Goodall), who was a real pantomime dame of a character. There were points in the show when the gags, which had been cleverly added into the original script, could have been a little too tacky. I felt, though, that they worked well in the context of this hilarious, well-performed production that left me grinning for hours afterwards.
Oxford Daily Info
The Merry Wives of Windsor is not one of the most performed Shakespeare plays, perhaps suggesting that it is not one of his better dramas, but Oxford Shakespeare Company's energetic and well-executed interpretation makes for a captivating show.
The plot is not a simple one ( I recommend buying a programme and reading the synopsis first) with the main themes the age-old ones of courting, cuckoldry, jealousy, deception and revenge. Such was the complexity of the action that one of the actors felt impelled to ask the audience, "Are you keeping up with the plot?" and indeed there was plenty of slap-stick to leaven the density of Shakespeare's original lines. These pantomime aspects might offend purists, but they got the biggest laughs, and certainly caught the spirit of the piece.
The performance included hilarious disguises and a professional performance by Falstaff, butt of female revenge for his inappropriate amorous (and pecuniary) advances, who succeeded in making us feel both sympathetic towards and appalled at his actions. The acting styles were diverse, with fine performances from French physician Caius, who provided 'allo 'allo style comedy, maid Nell Quickly, who took inspiration from Little Britain, and linguistically challenged Welsh priest Evans . That all but one of the female parts were played by male actors only added to the layers of deception – and the comedy.
Although there seemed no particular rationale behind the wincingly vulgar 70's costumes, they did make made the characters identifiable, and the players' voices triumphed over the occasional helicopter. I did not lose concentration for a second and was enthralled until the end.
Lucy Moore