Casting is complete for Christopher Luscombe’s production of The Merry Wives of Windsor at Shakespeare’s Globe. Joining the previously announced Christopher Benjamin as Falstaff and Globe alumna Sarah Woodward as Mistress Ford, are Serena Evans as Mistress Page and Sue Wallace as Mistress Quickly. The play will run from June 8 to October 5, with a June 18 press night.
They will be joined by Nathan Amzi, Gareth Armstrong, William Belchambers, Philip Bird, Otto Farrant, Peter Gale, Michael Garner, Gregory Dudgeon, Andrew Havill, Edward Macliam, Harry Manton, Ellie Piercy, Timothy Speyer, Jonty Stephens and Paul Woodson. The designer is Janet Bird, who worked with Luscombe on the Globe's 2006 version of The Comedy of Errors. Nigel Hess is composing original music for the show.
Leading man Benjamin played Falstaff in the Regent's Park al fresco production of Henry IV, Part 1 a few summer ago. His other credits include Sweeney Todd at the National and the Derek Jacobi-led revival of John Mortimer's Voyage Round My Father, at the Donmar and then at Wyndham's.
Merry Wives will be the third Shakespeare play to run in repertory at the Bankside venue this summer, following King Lear, which opens to the press May 2, and A Midsummer Night's Dream, which opens May 21.