The Merry Wives of Windsor, Much Wenlock - Review

What a difference a week makes.

I spent last Monday evening with the 21st century wives of Windsor – the Queen, the Duchess of Cornwall and the Duchess of Cambridge – at the jubilee concert in front of Buckingham, Palace.

While last night, the venue was The Green alongside Much Wenlock’s Holy Trinity Church for the launch of William Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor, this year’s festival Play.

• See more pictures in our gallery to your right

Both open air events, the concert drew the better weather, but none of last night’s first-nighters were fazed by the rain which started just as the play did.

And as for the cast, well they were brilliant.

They had adapted the church just in case we all needed to go indoors, but determined actors stayed firmly on the outdoor stage with towering trees as a backdrop, surrounded by old gravestones.

And when the rain came?

Well they just carried on regardless with the thoroughly entertaining comedy, first published in 1602 and featuring portly Sir John Falstaff.

His pretty hopeless attempts to have his 17th century wicked way with Mistress Paige and Mistress Ford, both married to respectable citizens of Windsor, not only provided much of the humour for an appreciative audience, but also gave Angela Beechey and Joanna Purslow the blueprint for how go be part of a very funny comic duo.

While Falstaff himself (played by Tim Baker) and a disguised Frank Ford, Peter Beechey, teamed up as another comedy turn with Frank trying to find out just what Falstaff had been plotting.

As with most Shakespeare plays, you have to be patient, go with the flow and soak up the language as the plot unfurls. But as ever, it’s worth the wait.

Interestingly, The Merry Wives of Windsor has recently been presented at London’s Globe Theatre by a Kenyan company – and in Swahili.

Last night we just got the English version and absolute credit to the Shropshire Drama Company who delivered the production with style, enthusiasm and often long but faultless speeches.

The knockabout element worked beautifully and every performance could have been from the professional stage - a credit to director Rosalind Garrard – with Emma Middlemiss’s Mistress Quickly a particularly delicious little cameo.

The play runs until Saturday and deserves to run for much longer..

Shirley Tart