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| Like a fair house, built on another man’s ground |
The lady gardener herself suggests the above image is perhaps a more accurate representation of her real appearance. I know that she has looked in a mirror recently, so we shall have to take her word for it.
Anyway, speaking of merry wives, I have been to see exactly that play. Northern Broadsides have dropped the "of Windsor" (echoing Kaiser Wilhelm II who once declared that he was off to see a performance of "The Merry Wives of Saxe-Coburgh-Gotha"), but I'm not sure why, beyond a couple of spurious references to Ilkley and Skipton. It was entertaining enough - Verdi's opera based on the play is far better - but nothing out of the ordinary. Rutter's Falstaff was, like his Lear, a bit understated for my taste and his costume did him no favours, having all the realism of a circus clown's oversized trousers. The elder Miss Epictetus was perhaps wise in giving this particular Shakespeare performance a miss.
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