Legend has it that Elizabeth I was so taken with Sir John Falstaff, the roistering fat knight of the Henry IV plays, that she commanded Shakespeare instantly to write another drama with him in it. Good Queen Bess herself would surely have beamed at this delightful take on that royal command script, quite the best and freshest work I've seen at the Globe in several years.
Christopher Luscombe's period dress production, full of clever touches, is more fluid and flexible than many that come to staid, sticky ends in this notoriously difficult arena. For a start, some inspired liberties have been taken with the design, with a new traverse strip positioned a couple of metres in front of the main stage and linked to it by a small bridge. This increased opportunity for coming and going gives a pleasing sense of the close-knit, kindly but gossipy community of Windsor attending to its daily business.
There are gasps of delight from the audience when this section rotates to reveal a compact and colourful garden complete with love seat. But what of the genial knight, whose "guts are made of puddings", who so tickled the fancy of Her Majesty? Christopher Benjamin's lovable old rogue of a Falstaff, all exuberantly coloured clothing and huge belly, is up to his usual tricks, attempting to woo the titular spouses, Mistresses Ford and Page, in the hope of getting his mitts on their rich husbands' money. He is run deliciously ragged by these mischievous minxes, joyously played by Sarah Woodward and Serena Evans, ending up variously bundled into a linen basket, disguised as a witch and saddled with the enormous stag's horns of Herne the Hunter.
As this is indisputably Shakespeare's jolliest comedy - and the only one without the slightest shadow of death lingering about it - these japes carry no weight of malice. Instead, the burgeoning middle class of a very merrie England, of which Shakespeare himself was a member, is shown in a particularly positive light. Page (Michael Garner) and Ford (Andrew Havill) are fine, upstanding members of society, for all the latter's Basil Fawlty-esque gangly-limbed jealousy.
There's an amusing "funny foreigner" turn - no wonder many cite this piece as the prototype of sitcom - from Philip Bird as the excessively French doctor Caius, and even the music is sweetly affecting, rather than this venue's customary authentic-instrument irritation. Merriness unbridled.
In rep until 5 October (020 7401 9919).
Totus Mundus: The Merry Wives Of Windsor
Shakespeare's Globe Theatre
New Globe Walk, SE1 9DT
