The Royal Shakespeare Company
So, I’d been preparing for this particular production for a considerable time – being specific since 5 March when I purchased the tickets – so by last Wednesday my internal excitement levels had surfaced, and my poor, unsuspecting work colleagues were placed in the hideous position of dealing with an all singing (badly), all skipping (somewhat better), all at times too genuinely excited Allied Health Professional. Bring on Saturday…and happily it came.

Thus, post a delicious two courser at the Rooftop Restaurant, accompanied by a glass and a half of Chablis, we took our seats and prepared for the action. And oh such fabulous action it was.  And humour, oh such fabulous humour it was. And the best (I really mean this), the very best staging I’ve ever had the delight of spying. Dear Scenic Art Department and Scenic Engineering Department you created and crafted a ‘First’ in spectacular scene setting.

So to the story, I giggled (politely) though by the time it came to Falstaff meeting Mistress Page in her seductive warehouse conversion, I was chortling and chuckling like a madwoman.  The smooth moves, the flirtatious agility, the suspicious Frank Ford were too much for me to bear, hence I remained pretty much for the rest of the show, shrieking loudly and being genuinely absorbed by the talented acting and entertaining text.

Furthermore, as you can only imagine… Shakespeare…Comedy…must include mistaken identity and you are not wrong.  Additionally, deception (raucous laughter deception) is available in abundance within this production.

You experience no anti-pleasure. The show’s a stomper in the stakes of all round great entertainment.

Finally and the thing that probably astounds me most – it’s incredible to think that his kind of comedy just doesn’t age.  For here I am approximately 500 years after this was first staged, getting the jokes and reacting in perhaps the same way as another theatre goer did 100 years, 350 years, 500 years ago did. Moreover, plays are still being written and produced along these lines today – such as the fabulous, One Man, Two Guvnors – so it’s great and encouraging news dear theatre lovers. There’s a wealth of divine satisfaction do be had.

Go get some!