How many Shakespeare comedies are actually funny? Not a great number, I’d contest, but Merry Wives is usually one of the bankers, as it’s a warm and affecting piece that pokes fun at a range of unpleasant and entitled male behaviour.
Unfortunately, that all-important “usually” doesn’t pertain here, in a production that frantically contrives to over-egg whatever scraps of humour it can lay its hands upon.
Like too many Globe efforts of late, this is not fully formed in its conception, with too many elements, a 1930s setting among them, half-baked. Elle While offers a dragging, jagged production with an over-reliance on over-emphasis; we idle away much tedious time until those two great centrepiece scenes of the gulling of Falstaff, only to discover to our great disappointment that they were by no means worth the wait.
The set-up is delightful in its simplicity: Sir John Falstaff (Pearce Quigley), down on his luck, decides to woo two rich married women, Mistress Ford (Bryony Hannah) and Mistress Page (Sarah Finigan), who combine to teach the fat knight a jolly lesson or two. There’s little charm in Quigley’s performance; his wry and weary delivery of every line soon wears very thin.
There are promising moments from Hannah and Finigan but neither manage to make a definitive mark on the role. This is by no means an evening of merry-making.
In rep until October 12 (020 7401 9919, shakespearesglobe.com)
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