The Merry Wives of Windsor: Shakespeare gets the suburban sitcom treatment

• One of the biggest laughs generated by Blanche McIntyre’s capable production of The Merry Wives of Windsor came about before the show had even opened. Much incredulity greeted the RSC’s content advisory warning that the play – an Elizabethan star-vehicle, as ‘twere, for the fat knight Sir John Falstaff – features “bullying in the form of body-shaming”.