Merry Wives of Windsor 1985 Royal Shakespeare Company

The Merry Wives of Windsor: Director, Bill Alexander; Designer, William Dudley; Photograph: Donald Cooper (ahds.ac.uk/performingarts); Royal Shakespeare Company, April 1985.

"William Dudley's set gives us a lively sense of Windsor through an overhanging Tinguely-type sculture composed of traffic lights, chimney pots, umbrellas, house frames and much else. And the characters inhabit a precisely defined world. The Fords clearly live in mock Tudor suburbia where the cocktail cabinet is a prize feature. The Pages are slightly more Pooterish with their galleon windowed porch." Michael Billington, Guardian 4.4.85. Opening Date: 3 April 1985; Theatre: Royal Shakepeare Theatre.

Because of its realistic prose style Merry Wives can readily be updated to modern times with a resulting greater impact. See our analogous treatment of Merry Wives in Gallery 1 and the relevant video clip. HMR