14 - 30 June
“One of the most joyful and entertaining productions of Shakespeare you could wish to see"
The Public Reviews
GSC's recipe for the perfect open-air comedy:
Take a garrulous old rogue and a jealous husband and beat until light and fluffy; add two well-respected wives and a wash-basket; to this pour in equal measures of useless Welsh parson and outrageous French doctor; finally add a dash of young love and a sprinkling of good humour. Bake for 2 hours until the jealous husband is crispy on both sides and then serve piping hot with lashings of 1950s music, dance and feather-dusters! Bon Appétit!
With speculation that the play was written by Royal Command for Elizabeth I, and with our present Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations, this open-air production tipped a wink to the royal connection with an early 1950s suburban setting. 2012 was also the summer of the London Olympics and a sense of British pride swept the country, and so we set our production in June 1953, the morning of the Queen's coronation.
Our production of The Merry Wives of Windsor was staged in the beautiful Castle Gardens, beneath the magnificent oak tree.
This production also saw the arrival of actors Chris Porter and Morgan Philpott who have gone on to appear in so many of our shows since.
“This is Guildford Shakespeare Company doing what they do best –a riotous comedy" The Shakespeare Revue
“You could not have a more exhilarating, fun-filled evening than this”British Theatre Guide
