Newcastle start for Northern Broadsides Merry Wives

Published: 30 January 2016
Reporter: Steve Orme

Barrie Rutter as Sir John Falstaff

Touring specialist Northern Broadsides are to partner Newcastle-under-Lyme’s New Vic Theatre to stage a new version of William Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives.

It will be the third time that the Yorkshire company has staged the play; it previously produced it in 1993 and 2001.

Northern Broadsides artistic director Barrie Rutter will direct a cast of 16 and will also play Sir John Falstaff.

The play is set in the 1920s in the north of England at a time when Sir John Falstaff is past his prime and skint. Vain rogue that he is, he attempts rather clumsily to seduce a couple of well-to-do wives. But Mistress Page and Mistress Ford get wise and plan to exact revenge with hilarious consequences.

The cast comprises Gerard McDermott (Robert Shallow), John Gully (Sir Hugh Evans), Jos Vantyler (Abraham Slender), Roy North (George Page), Josh Moran (Bardolph / Rugby), Ben Burman (Pistol / William), Adam Barlow (Nim / Fenton), Becky Hindley (Mistress Ford), Sarah Eve (Ann Page / Robin), Al Bollands (Peter Simple), Helen Sheals (Mistress Quickly), Nicola Sanderson (Mistress Page), Andy Cryer (Doctor Caius), Andrew Vincent (Frank Ford), and Mark Stratton (host).

The Merry Wives runs at the New Vic from Friday 5 until Saturday 27 February and will then tour nationally until 28 May.

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