23 April: Merry Wives of Windsor

On this date in 1597 Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor was first performed. Here are 10 things you might not know about it:

1. At least, it was if you subscribe to the theory that it was written to be performed at the Order of the Garter festival on this date. This theory arises from the fact that one of the characters, Mistress Quickly, gives a long speech describing the Order, and the mention in the play of a German duke, generally thought to be Frederick I, Duke of Württemberg, who was elected to the Order of the Garter in 1597. No-one actually knows for sure. The earliest definitely dated performance occurred on 4 November 1604, at Whitehall Palace.
2. What's it about? It's a comedy about the character of John Falstaff trying to swindle money from two ladies in Windsor. They are wise to him and submit him to various punishments. There is also a sub plot involving a young woman convincing her parents to let her marry the man she loves.
3. Key themes of Merry Wives include love and marriage, jealousy and revenge, social class and wealth.
4. Some critics believe this play to be one of Shakespeare's weakest, and that the portrayal of the Falstaff character is disappointing compared to his appearances in other plays. A possible explanation for this is that it was written very quickly.
5. There's a theatre legend that backs this up. The story goes that Elizabeth I loved the character of Falstaff so much that she commanded Shakespeare to write a play featuring him in love. There's also a legend that she commanded the play to be written in a fortnight.
6. It's the only one of Shakespeare's plays to be set in what would have been current day England at the time.
7. According to the Complete Public Domain Text, there are 23,788 words in the script.
8. A number of well known English language expressions have their origins in this play: The world is your oyster, the short and long of it, what the dickens and as luck would have it.
9. Antonio Salieri, Giuseppe Verdi and Ralph Vaughan Williams all wrote operas based on it.
10. Historical figures who saw the play included Samuel Pepys, who recorded in his diary that he'd seen it three times, despite the fact he didn't like it. Another, possibly, was Kaiser Wilhelm II who once joked that he was going to see a performance of 'The Merry Wives of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha' in reference to the fact that the British royal family had changed their name to hide their German roots.

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