The Merry Wives of Windsor: Reinventing Falstaff – as a bit of a catch

Telegraph

10-07-2025

Sean Holmes 's revival of the c1597 Falstaff spin-off reputedly written at Elizabeth I's request (she wanted to see the fat knight in love after watching Henry IV Part I) is lucid, edited for swiftness and offers those seeking some light relief at Shakespeare's Globe a dependable, if basic outing – possibly, on a balmy evening, a blissful one.
The casting of new Globe favourite George Fouracres in the plum role of Falstaff – who bids to woo two middle-class Windsor ladies, Mistresses Ford and Page, for pecuniary gain, only to be humiliated and become the town laughing-stock – should be the production's biggest selling-point. The inconvenient truth, though, is that while the talented Black Country comedian and actor gives us a novel slant – he's a younger, more sprightly and more appealing Falstaff than usual, eschewing hoary, roly-poly caricature – he doesn't fully dominate proceedings as you'd hope; the supporting cast often garner the belly-laughs.
The problem with trying to do something different with what can look like a proto-sitcom – with its scheming women, stereotyped Frenchman, bevy of dim-wits and plus-sized buffoon at its centre – is that you risk contradicting the running joke at Falstaff's expense. 'This whale, with so many tuns of oil in his belly…' sneers Mistress Ford, on reading his duplicitous (nay duplicated) love-letter, allying herself with Mistress Page against 'this greasy knight' (elsewhere he is 'this old fat fellow'). When Fouracres says 'Indeed I am in the waist two yards about', it's as if the character's self-delusion has flipped and he's over-exaggerating his portliness. Something of a chancer, and charmer, he's actually seen as hot stuff by Katherine Pearce's lusty Mistress Ford, who can't keep her hands off him or resist a snog.
It's a moderately interesting avenue to explore, lending ambivalence to her instinct to punish him, and a grain of truth to her husband's obsessive jealousy. At the end, you see real desperation in this trapped housewife. Still, it feels like a cul-de-sac; there's only so much depth you can apply to a play that glories in shallowness, its barbs and badinage a riot of daftness.
The set-piece humiliations, in which Falstaff, fearing discovery, buries himself inside a laundry basket, and disguises himself as the 'fat woman of Brentford', plus the climactic drubbing in the forest, are entertainingly rendered – with a surprising edge to the knockabout violence. But weighed against the grandeur of Falstaff's past – especially Roger Allam's Olivier-winning performance in a Globe Henry IV – Fouracres has been prematurely propelled into the role; his roguish performance feels rather run-of-the-mill.
Bringing some vital added colour to the scene – rather neutered and socially hazy thanks to a tasteful, floral set-design that resembles an outbreak of William Morris wrapping-paper – there are notable turns from Emma Pallant, glinting with mischief as Mistress Page, Jolyon Coy as the insatiably suspicious Ford, and Samuel Creasey as the pompous Welsh parson Evans. Eminently suitable for tourists, fitfully it soars. But Holmes has done better here and it falls short of being a summer sensation for all.