Falstaf - "Have I caught thee, my heavenly jewl"
Mrs Ford - "O Sweet Sir John!"

The Merry Wives of Windsor

Scotland on Sunday review of The Merry Wives of Windsor.

This year’s Shakespeare production at Traquair is one of the most popular of Shakespeare’s plays on the modern stage - ‘an excellent and pleasant conceited comedy of Sir John Falstaff and the Merry Wives of Windsor’.

Photographs of the Performances

The play, Shakespeare’s only thoroughly English comedy, was written as a ‘Garter Play’ and is perhaps an enhancement of an entertainment originally offered at the Order of the Garter Feast at Westminster on 23rd April 1597. Sir John is the anti-hero of the play now known as ‘The Merry Wives of Windsor’. He seriously contravenes the chivalric code of the Order, and is duly humiliated (three times) at the hands of the Merry Wives. The play creates the impression of life in an English provincial town. ‘It provides a contemporary [to Shakespeare], domestic and non-aristocratic feel unique in Shakespearean drama.’ It is also one of Shakespeare’s funniest plays. The sub-plots enhance the humour of Sir John’s adventures: the come-uppance of the jealous husband Ford / Brooke; and of course the trials and tribulation of a loving couple as the heroine resists the attentions of less acceptable suitors and tries to marry her true love.
We hope you will come to laugh and enjoy the performance of the play ‘en promenade’, in the gardens of Traquair.

Performance Dates
"The Merry Wives of Windsor" will be performed at Traquair House from Wednesday 4th – Saturday 7th June 2008 and Wednesday 11th – Saturday 14th June 2008. Start time every evening is 7.30 pm.

"The Merry Wives of Windsor" Tickets
£10.00 (£8.00 conc) with special offers available for school groups on Wednesday's and Thursdays. Tickets available via The Eastgate Arts Centre in Peebles, telephone 01721 725777.(For Information call Tel:01721 723224 Mobile:07962316547 or email luca@shakespeare-at-traquair.co.uk).

Eastgate Box Office: opening hours 10 AM - 2 PM.

Helpful links
Eastgate Theatre & Arts Centre
Map of Traquair House
Local accommodation - ReceptionBell.com