| Group leader | Jackie Rance |
| Telephone | 07770 885003 |
| jaxrance@gmail.com | |
| Meets | First and third Tuesdays, 10.15am to 12.15pm |
We do a close reading of the play with much analysis followed by watching DVDs of the scenes we have read. There is then a lively discussion of the play, the characters, the action and stagecraft and also the actual production and performances we have watched.
We also try to bear in mind what was going on in Shakespeare’s England about the time it was written. Very often we can also relate the plays to problems of today, particularly the politics in the history plays.
Having finished studying the ‘Problem Comedies’, we are now enjoying ourselves reading one of the two outright rollicking comedies that Shakespeare wrote – The Merry Wives of Windsor. This is the only one of his comedies located in England, reputedly at Queen Elizabeth I’s request. She wanted Falstaff brought back to life. As a lot of the humour lies in the mangling use of English by a Welsh parson, a French doctor, a publican with his own personal dialect and Pistol, who talks in quotations. There is still a lot of ‘translating’ to do, but it is a lot of fun.