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one which had died by the mid-seventeenth century). The Comedy of Errors, reckoned to be Shakespeare's first and definitely his shortest play, has the elements of a very funny modern farce, but the one production I saw was buried by the decision to treat the actors as mere mechanical components (rude mechanicals, if you like). Much Ado About Nothing is almost perfect at times, usually when Beatrice and Benedick are onstage, but flags and drags in the second half. Taming of the Shrew is good, if you can get beyond instinctive twenty-first century incredulity; The Merry Wives of Windsor surprisingly fun. As You Like It and Love's Labours Lost have their moments, but you'd be better advised sticking with a late romance and suspending disbelief. And I'm ashamed and slightly surprised to admit that I've never seen Twelfth Night.

Julius Caesar is a fine portrayal of politicians, with the noble traitor Brutus and the conniving, wily Mark Anthony to the fore. Nor do I much like the latter in Anthony and Cleopatra, in which the glorious queen of Egypt is more like a woman with far too much free time and a penchant for powerful men. Coriolanus, on the other hand, is one of the most potent and topical plays, describing a man too proud to plead for recognition from his inferiors, a leader whom the populace can't live with nor live without. Of the other non-chronicle plays, The Merchant of Venice is generally prized highest and Measure for Measure has its moments, although too many of them are dull.

King John reads like a collection of scenes discarded from the other histories and cobbled together to make a new play; which is not to say that it isn't very good, but that it all seems strangely familiar. Richard II is one of the finest, a study of a man fit to be king but who idled away that which was his responsibility and is interesting to consider alongside Marlowe's Edward II, although Marlowe's heroes tend to actively defy Fate more than do Shakespeare's (with the exception of the aforementioned Coriolanus). The two parts of Henry IV are superb, as the eponymous king gradually slides out of his own play, haunted by his own usurpation of the crown, the consequent civil strife, and the fact that his heir is hanging round taverns with a very disreputable crowd. The journey of Prince Hal is one of the most interesting in all the canon, made immortal by the relationship with the father-figure, and hopelessly inappropriate father-figure, of Falstaff. This prepares us for the

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