Plymouth Theatre Review

Easy to Follow: 2

Family Friendly: 3

Must see: 2

Title: The Merry Wives of Windsor

Venue: Barbican Theatre

Date: 21/4/26

‘The Merry Wives of Windsor‘ is a comedy written by William Shakespeare; the story follows Sir John Falstaff (Simon Hill) and his attempt to seduce some of the wives of Windsor; Mistress Ford (Lucy Kitcher) and Mistress Page (Jade Kimber) but little does Falstaff know he is going to be humiliated and fooled very publicly.

As always, The Tamaritans created a wonderful atmosphere with both set design (Vince Sutton & Hollie Acton) and Wardrobe (Pearl Potts) designing and creating wonderfully authentic and time suited looks which brought the performance to life. The set was practical and allowed for performers to interact with it (moving sections, doors) which meant there was a fluidity to movement on stage. However, there were moments where that felt static due to technical elements. For sound (Vince Sutton) there were instrumentals of popular modern songs, quite like the music they use for Bridgerton. Unfortunately, there were moments where the songs would be played over the actors which meant that dialogue was missed and there were also moments where songs would be played very loudly for brief moments during a two second transition. I believe silence or very faint music would have suited the atmosphere of the play better in those moments as it would prevent the audience from being dragged out of the flow of the play. 

Performance wise I believe the cast did a good job, Shakespeare can be difficult to perform, and I think they should all be very proud especially due to the amount of dialogue in this show. I did feel like the comedic aspect of the work didn’t come through as much as I hoped, I think this could be due to the Shakespearean language, as sometimes the meaning behind the words was lost to the audience. Going forward I would recommend The Tamaritans to look deeper into the meaning of the words, why did Shakespeare write it in this way? What is the meaning of the sentence? Really flesh out the text, this may aid in memorising lines and how to pronounce them giving better meaning to the delivery of the lines.  A couple of actors stood out to me for their performances. Amber Hall (Fenton) had a great stage presence and good dictation on her delivery.  Lucy Kitcher (Mistress Ford) brought great charisma to her role which was much needed for her character, and Jade Kimber (Mistress Page) also brought charm to her character. Kimber and Kitcher had great chemistry which meant the plotting scenes had a natural humour to them which added a lot to their action together.

Overall, I think The Tamaritans did a great job at tackling this play and brought charm and character to it.  Their next show  ‘And Then There Were None’ is showing at the Watermark, Ivybridge in July this year. 

Reviewed by Joe Neville

*Gifted – This theatre review was written following a gifted ticket to the performance. However, all opinions and views expressed in this review are entirely that of the reviewer and the review has not been influenced in any way by the provision of the ticket. Our commitment remains to provide an honest and unbiased assessment of the experience.