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The Merry Wives of Windsor review: Haughty, naughty Sir John Falstaff leads us on a merry dance, writes PATRICK MARMION
PATRICK MARMION: The Royal Shakespeare Company's production is a splendidly suburban production that re-creates the sleepy serenity of middle England.
The story of shipwrecked Viola and her twin brother Sebastian, who get caught up in the romantic intrigues of the country's Duke, Countess and her servant Malvolio (Dennis) is electrified, literally, by a barrage of classic plugged-in pop and four-letter ad-libbing. There is a howling song medley, triggered by drunken, trouble-making knights Toby Belch and Andrew Aguecheek, with the audience urged to join in — only to be admonished by Dennis's killjoy Malvolio (a pink-chopped pensioner displeased to find his Lady's house turned into a tavern). When the revellers eventually get their revenge — by tricking him into thinking the Countess is sweet on him — he pulls on a hilariously bling outfit of a high-vis yellow fur coat, topped with eyeliner, aviator shades and a bed-head hair-do, all to the strains of Hot Chocolate's You Sexy Thing.
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