The Merry Wives of Windsor at the Globe is, hands down, the most ridiculous Shakespeare play I’ve ever seen – and yes, I’m including Sh!tfaced Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I knew it was going to be farcical going in, but even so, this production leans hard into the chaos, and it works. Big, bold, silly, and really, really funny.
If you don’t know the plot: Sir John Falstaff, broke and brazen, decides to seduce two wealthy wives at the same time, sending them both identical love letters. Unfortunately for him, they’re good friends – and much smarter than he is. What follows is a string of elaborate humiliations as they plot their revenge and drag him through the dirt (and the laundry basket).
George Fouracres is Falstaff, and he’s absolutely brilliant. I’d seen him before in One Man Musical as a parody Andrew Lloyd Webber, and while this is a very different character, there are echoes – pompous, ridiculous, and completely shameless. His Falstaff is lecherous and deluded, throwing himself into each new trick or disguise with full conviction, whether he’s hiding behind curtains, clambering into laundry baskets, or panicking about fairies in the courtyard. There’s a brilliant moment where he crouches down in fear and gets all the groundlings (the audience in the courtyard) to crouch with him. It’s completely stupid, and completely hilarious.
Katherine Pearce and Emma Pallant are a great pairing as Mistress Ford and Mistress Page. Pearce brings an interesting element to Mistress Ford, where she genuinely seems to have affection for old Falstaff, and is in a constant battle with her own better judgment. Sophie Russell, who doubles as Shallow and Mistress Quickly, switches roles with a speed and clarity that is nothing short of miraculous. One minute she’s a bearded old man, the next a quick-talking go-between, and it all lands beautifully.
The accents are something else. Sir Hugh Evans (Samuel Creasey) is Welsh. Extremely Welsh. Comically so. It borders on caricature and often tips over, with his delivery sometimes hard to understand, but his every line still one of the funniest things in the show. Same goes for Adam Wadsworth’s Doctor Caius – an exaggerated Frenchman whose accent reminded me of John Cleese in Monty Python’s Holy Grail and who seemed to be making up his own version of the language. As a fluent French speaker, I was laughing hard at how many non-French words he confidently spat out with a flourish. Half the audience came back from the interval muttering “bagarrrre”, his signature sound.
Wadsworth also plays the idiot suitor Slender, a wet blanket that Mr Page wishes to marry to his daughter. The contrast between his two roles is so clean that it took me a while (and a glance at the programme) to realise it was the same actor. He’s completely ridiculous in both parts, in all the right ways. Danielle Phillips is another multi-parter, although much easier to spot. She plays Anne Page, Robin the Page, and Bardolph – all clearly defined by costume and wig changes, and genuinely funny. It’s proper physical, character-led comedy, and the doubling is rarely confusing.
Jolyon Coy as Mr Ford was fabulous. He portrayed Ford’s descent into jealous lunacy with utter flair, and you couldn’t help but feel sorry for Ford each time he was thwarted by the idiot Falstaff.
It was fabulous to see a wheelchair user in the cast (LJ Parkinson, playing Host and Pistol), with no changes to the characters or reference made to the chair. For once, we get to see a disabled actor perform in a role that is not about being disabled. They were very well cast and great fun to watch. And with July being Disability Pride Month, it’s worth saying how much it matters to see this kind of visibility presented so casually and confidently – just part of the world of the play.
Costume and set are firmly in pastel territory – lemony yellows, soft greens, printed florals on absolutely everything. The whole play looks like Grace Smart designed it inside a William Morris wallpaper sample. But it definitely works. Families are colour-coded, outfits match the tone, and Falstaff’s rich red costume makes him pop from every corner of the stage.
Some of the best comedy moments come from the staging itself – quick changes that genuinely surprised me, mistaken identities that land because the cast fully commit to the madness, and a sort of mad fairy scene in the woods. It’s nonsense. Beautifully executed nonsense.
This isn’t subtle Shakespeare, it’s basically Carry On Up The Avon. It’s not trying to be clever, or earnest, or poetic. It’s fast, silly, and performed with total commitment. Don’t try to follow every little thread, just give in to the silliness and you’ll have a blast.
Merry Wives of Windsor is playing at Shakespeare’s Globe, currently booking until 20 September 2025.
Get your tickets at shakespearesglobe.com
Words by Nick Barr
Photography by Marc Brenner
