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The Merry Wives of Windsor - end of play, part 2 of 2

Act 5, scene 5, line 106 to end of play (Arden edition) by William Shakespeare as part of the "Fawlty Towers" Shakespeare trilogy, go here to see John Cleese as Petruchio in "The Taming of the Shrew": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2NnhBNq6h8 and here to see Andrew Sachs as Trinculo in "The Tempest": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8P-lNzgA7jI The final scene was by far the best part of this production. Prunella Scales ... Mistress Page Judy Davis ... Mistress Ford Richard Griffiths ... Sir John Falstaff Tenniel Evans ... Sir Hugh Evans Richard O'Callaghan ... Slender Michael Bryant ... Doctor Caius Bryan Marshall ... George Page Simon Chandler ... Fenton Miranda Foster ... Anne Page Ben Kingsley ... Frank Ford Directed by David Hugh Jones (as David Jones) Original Music by Dominic Muldowney from Samuel Johnson: Notes to Shakespeare: General Observation. Of this play there is a tradition preserved by Mr. Rowe, that it was written at the command of queen Elizabeth, who was so delighted with the character of Falstaff, that she wished it to be diffused through more plays; but suspecting that it might pall by continued uniformity, directed the poet to diversify his manner, by shewing him in love. No task is harder than that of writing to the ideas of another. Shakespeare knew what the queen, if the story be true, seems not to have known, that by any real passion of tenderness, the selfish craft, the careless jollity, and the lazy luxury of Falstaff must have suffered so much abatement, that little of his former cast would have remained. Falstaff could not love, but by ceasing to be Falstaff. He could only counterfeit love, and his professions could be prompted, not by the hope of pleasure, but of money. Thus the poet approached as near as he could to the work enjoined him; yet having perhaps in the former plays completed his own idea, seems not to have been able to give Falstaff all his former power of entertainment.

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