Shakespeare's only English comedy gets a 1930s glow-up with dirty laundry and dirtier intentions.
Double-meanings, disguises and dirty laundry abound as Sir John Falstaff sets about improving his financial situation by wooing Mistress Page and Mistress Ford. But the ‘Merry Wives’ quickly cotton on to his tricks and decide to have a bit of fun of their own at Falstaff’s expense… The Merry Wives of Windsor is the only comedy that Shakespeare set in his native land. Drawing influences from British 1930s fashion, music and dance, the production will celebrate women, the power and beauty of nature, and with its witty mix of verbal and physical humour, it rejoices in a tradition that reaches right down to the contemporary English sitcom. The Windsor Locals appear courtesy of Soldiers’ Arts Academy, London Bubble and Clean Break.
Production
1930s costumes transform the Globe into vintage English suburbia.
Acting
Pearce Quigley's Falstaff: sweaty, desperate, magnificently pathetic.
Direction
Community performers from veterans' and women's prisons programs.
Director
Ian Russell
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The 'cuckold' keyword isn't accidental—Ford's jealousy plot was Elizabethan sitcom gold, and this production leans into the farce.
Clean Break and Soldiers' Arts Academy casts bring authentic working-class English voices to Shakespeare's only play set among ordinary folk.
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