"THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR" (LYRIC, HAMMERSMITH).
IN The Merry Wives of Windsor, Shakespeare, who attempted nearly everything, tried his hand at the Jonsonian " well-made " play, had a sort of contemptuous shot at the theory of the humours and for the rest did his characterization for the most part with a stump of charcoal, and shut his mouth whenever he felt a line of poetry might come out. Though we may in this age find it a little boisterous and dim it is
impossible not to admire the way in which the play works, the efficient motives that are provided for the turns of the plot, the play's general air of life and its author's practised sense of stage effects.
Mr. Bridges Adams, who is responsible for the present production, has used exactly the same methods that he employs for the play at Stratford-on-Avon, and very good methods they are. Here he has a very strong cast. I was unfortunate in not seeing Mr. Roy Byford as Sir John Falstaff (who was hailed in large headlines by some newspapers as the only Falstaff who did not have to pad), but even without him the acting was notably good. Miss Edith Evans was beautiful and bustling as Mistress Page, and Miss Dorothy Green gave an excellent performance as Mistress Ford. Mr. Nigel Playfair and Miss Elsie French were both very amusing, and Mr. Reginald Bach had a genuine Welsh accent as Sir Hugh Evans. Mr. Randle Ayrton's Ford was remark- able, almost too emotional for a part of which Shakespeare seems to have tired halfway, but most revealing and convincing In the earlier scenes when he made us sorry for that most unsympathetic creature, a jealous husband. TARN.
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