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It’s as though all the idealism and suffering of the characters leads to nothing more than the indignation of today’s sectarian identity politics.All the same, Indhu Rubasingham’s production is brisk and tense. There is real wit in Adamson’s dialogue, though it’s also aggressively explicit, as though needing to disguise its own political frustrations.Still, it’s cleverly, even elegantly, designed by Richard Kent, with historical scenes unfolding like the pages of a book.There are worse ways to spend a summer evening than watching a Shakespearean comic actor diving into a laundry basket several sizes too small, and being rolled down the steps onto a standing audience.So here’s to a fine Falstaff in Shakespeare’s only comedy of middle-class manners.Pearce Quigley is always masterfully undignified, whether tumbling into a basket, dressed as the Witch of Brentford with a lilac chiffon scarf around his unruly beard, stumbling about blindfolded groping the groundlings, or dressed as a stag shouting ‘Doe, a deer, a female deer!’ at Mistress Ford.Quigley is a joy, suavely and sourly funny, deploying that flat Yorkshire accent so suitable for gloomy put-downs (a bit Alan Bennett at times). It is written and directed by Mackenzie Crook, who also stars alongside Toby Jones.. WIFE is a reminder (if any were needed) that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, queer and those in other sexual categories have endured a rough history.The inspiration for Samuel Adamson’s play is the character of Nora, who walks out on her tedious, infantilising husband in Henrik Ibsen’s 1879 play A Doll’s House.WIFE is a reminder (if any were needed) that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, queer and those in other sexual categories have endured a rough historyThat abandonment of husband — and children — makes Nora a feminist and LGBTQ icon, the play posits, who defied patriarchal oppression. But by far the funniest moment comes with Falstaff’s escape in the basket, as he’s pushed down the stage’s steps and out past the groundlings into the Thames. Pearce Quigley shouldn’t work as the hell-raising, dissolute, portly knight — he is rake-thin and louche; dry, laconic and ironic, like Jarvis Cocker’s earthy older brother. .’OK, cheap laughs have their place in Shakespeare’s most pacy, gonzo comedy.When director Elle While’s stage fills up with ‘locals’, by the way, they are from the ex-prisoner group Clean Break, the London Bubble Theatre Company, and the Soldiers’ Arts Academy.I would have liked more crowd scenes using them, because this vast stage loves a gang.The finale, with punk fairies tangling up an unrepentant Quigley in greenery, is a proper treat.And since they’ve set it in the Thirties, there’s a jazz band and a final jitterbug.
In the side-plot’s battle for affection, Boadicea Ricketts and Zach Wyatt’s Anne and Fenton display the only chemistry of the night; the rest just run around in foolish, sexless circles.Sasha Milavic Davies’s choreography swings some welcome energy on to the stage and the final scene in Windsor Forest is a magical-realist riot.
We’re in the era of girl groups and questionable colour combinations, Twist And Shout and Twister.Some elements do not always line up comfortably with the more rococo original (a lesson in courtly dance gets a bit strained as a campy photoshoot).Puccini’s third opera — and first success — Manon Lescaut followed hot on the heels of French composer Massenet’s adaptation of the same 18th-century novel.
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