Behind The Curtain: The Merry Wives of Windsor, Part One

Shakespeare's Spin-Off

By Liz Larson

Greetings dear friends, and welcome to our deep dive of William Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor! As Points North Theatre Company plans to stage this fun-filled romp on September 26th, we thought we’d create a series of blogposts about the play, so you can have as much Shakespearean goodness as you can handle. 

First up, let’s talk about the elephant in the room: Sir John Falstaff.  

If Shakespeare’s history plays are his Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Merry Wives of Windsor is a 30-minute spinoff comedy on Disney+. He takes the characters that populated the seedy tavern in East Cheap London during Henry IV Parts 1 & 2 and Henry V, and transports them into the bucolic, upper-middle-class world of Windsor. 

So, who is this merry band of ne’er-do-wells that descend on the upper crust of Windsor? To answer that, we have to consult ‘The Henriad’. 

‘The Henriad’ is a series of history plays written by Shakespeare to chart the rise of the much-lauded English King, Henry V. For our purposes, we’ll ignore the other tetralogy of history plays that include the delightful Richard III, and start with Richard II, which was likely written in 1595. That play dramatizes the defeat and deposition of King Richard II in 1399 by his cousin Henry Bolingbroke who becomes King Henry IV. The plays Henry IV Part I (1596-7) and Henry IV Part 2 (1597-99) are ostensibly about the reign of King Henry IV, but really more about his son Prince Hal who will become Henry V. 

Now, this Prince Hal is far from regal and frankly a grossly inaccurate portrait of the real Prince Hal (see Helen Castor’s The Eagle and the Hart for a historically accurate– and yet still entertaining – narrative of these kings), but it makes him a loveable rogue, so perhaps we can allow Shakespeare some creative license. This Prince Hal finds himself caught between two courts. One is the royal court of his father King Henry IV who struggles with the knowledge that he has deposed a divinely appointed king (Richard II) and demands better of his son. The other is the roguish court of The Boar’s Head Inn in East Cheap London which is presided over by the disgraceful knight and sometimes-father-figure Sir John Falstaff. 

John Falstaff’s defining characteristic is his fatness. The plays are riddled with references to it not as low-hanging comedic fruit, but because Falstaff’s gluttony represents his love of worldly delights. He drinks and cheats and steals, embracing life to its fullest. The references to his great, round belly are meant to evoke the world itself. In fact, in arguing that Prince Hal should never banish him from his company, Falstaff says, ‘Banish plump Jack, and banish all the world.’ 1 Henry IV II.4.497-8. 

The character was a raging success in the early modern period and regularly cited at the time as one of Shakespeare’s best. Dr. Emma Smith has suggested his appeal was akin to that of Homer Simpson. He’s by no means honorable, but he also isn’t violent. He’s just painfully selfish and gluttonous, but also honest about who he is. The warning is on the label. There’s a comfort in watching someone be dishonest in such an honest way. In one of his more famous speeches, he reflects on the value of ‘honor’. You can find a video of Roger Allam performing the speech from Act V, Scene 1 of 1 Henry VI at The Globe Theatre in 2010 here: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znvZ2WAa3OI

He’s essentially saying that honor is of no use to those who die to retain it, and no use to those who live because of how easily it’s slandered (‘detraction’ can be glossed as ‘slander’). He compares it to a scrutcheon, which is the panel with a gentleman’s coat of arms that could be carried in a funeral procession or hung in a church in honor of the dead. Basically, a symbol, nothing more. He ends this disparagement of the concept of honor by likening it to an interrogation of religious belief (i.e. a catechism). While this set of plainly held beliefs is not one wants in the attributes of a king or leader of any kind, it does make one heck of a compelling character. 

Prince Hal does not follow Falstaff to Windsor, which is probably for the best, because, in becoming Henry V, Hal also becomes a bit of a buzzkill (an exceptional speech giver, but a buzzkill nevertheless). Instead, Falstaff is joined in Windsor by four other denizens of the Boar’s Head Inn:  Bardolph, Pistol and Nym, and Mistress Quickly.  

Bardolph is a long-time hanger-on with Falstaff who helps him in several hair-brained schemes during the Henriad, while Pistol has a bit part mostly requiring him to pick fights in 2 Henry IV and Henry V, and Nym shows up to bring comedy and represent Henry V’s rejection of the common class in Henry V. Mistress Quickly shows up in all of The Henriad as the beleaguered proprietor of the Boar’s head. Like many of the working-class characters in Shakespeare, much of her comedy comes from mistakenly using the wrong words, but she also controls the mischief in the Inn with a surprising amount of competence. All of these characters are polished up a bit for their new setting, but some of the tarnished charm still remains. 

If you want to continue this deep dive into the play, sign up for the newsletter to be notified of our next post. Next up we’ll talk about those mischievous merry wives, their plot to be revenged on John Falstaff, and the plot of their eponymous play.

If you want to hear more from me about Shakespeare generally, I have a Substack called Shakespeare Said it Better that you can find at https://lizlarson.substack.com/. I’m an actor, attorney, and budding Shakespearean scholar finishing up my master’s in Shakespeare and Creativity at the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon.