The Merry Wives of Windsor, Shakespeare's Globe review - a gallimaufry of acting styles

Need Shakespeare 's Falstaff charm to be funny?

Those warm, indulgent feelings won by Mrisho Mpoto in the amazing Globe to Globe's Swahili Merry Wives and by Christopher Benjamin in a period-pretty version are rarely encouraged by this season's Helen Schlesinger (in Henry IV Parts One and Two ) and now Pearce Quigley for Ellie While's 1930s romp. Both cut handsome figures with padding, not puddings, in their bellies; Quigly's not-so-fat knight is a tenorial Northerner to whom melancholy seems to come more readily than mirth - sometimes amusing in itself, as in the cued-then-cut laughter of his first interplay with his minions. Nobody else is quite at one with the WIndsor world, and that's a fault; the yearlong ensemble work of the Henry plays shows this up as hit-and-miss comedy with varying levels of projection.

Despite portentous promises in her programme comments, While doesn't deliver on the deeper resonances of the period nor its parallels with the present. There are character-study opportunities for locals in the involvement of Clean Break, London Bubble and the Soldiers' Arts Academy, good opportunity for badinage before the show. Setting and costumes, though (by Charlie Cridlan) are mere window-dressing justified by Frank Moon's score, superbly played by the band up above and bringing coherence to the Windsor forest romp, with fun choreography by Sasha Milavic Davies. By then we're all won over, and since the Globe was made for the mugging and interaction which enliven Shakespeare's earthy sitcom, there's such a lot to enjoy. If only the Fords didn't throw away so much of the relish to be found in the colloquial text. Jude Okwusu as jealous husband Frank (pictured above) would have better gone for either the note of threat or crazed comedy but occupies an uneasy middle ground; Bryony Hannah's Alice is a crack hand with a whip but the voice itself needs to carry more. Her model in that respect should be Sarah Finigan's brisk, energetic Mistress Page. Sweet Anne Page is feisty and modern as played (and danced) with spirit by Boadicea Ricketts, for whom Zach Wyatt's Fenton seems like a good match.

There are two hostesses, one former, of the Boar's Head Eastcheap now in the service of Dr Caius, Mistress Quickly, the other the lively publican of the Garter Inn Windsor. Anita Reynolds and Anne Odeke ( pictured above with Joshua Lacey's Slender, Dickson Tyrrell's Shallow and Forbes Masson's Page) double the pleasure of the machinations. Caius's ludicrous 'Allo 'Allo French parody is set at just the right level to keep him human by Richard Katz; more Welsh relish would have been welcome from Hedydd Dylan as his schoolmasterly rival Sir Hugh Evans. Why the Page is a mincing catamite I've no idea; couldn't we have had at least one child or teenager on the stage? Shakespeare's Windsor, after all, is as much about breeding as marital virtue. Kids as fairies in the Herne's Oak gulling always add an extra charm, and we miss them here.

Let's not carp ovemuch, though; Quigley's interpolations are shrewd and groan-worthy - as not everyone in the audience will know what an arras is, "elbow" has to be enlisted, with the laugh line looming a mile off - and though Falstaff in the buck-basket isn't very deftly handled, the rolling through the groundling area to a Thames much wider than it is at Windsor and Datchet gives an extra frisson. I went with a newcomer to London who was in a state of uncontainable delight throughout; so the Globe magic still works even when a show isn't absolutely top-notch.