WHATEVER the truth of the story that Elizabeth I commanded Shakespeare to write a play showing Falstaff in love, 'The Merry Wives of Windsor' is one of the most entertaining in the language. This delightful play is being presented at the Wharf, Tavistock by the Bristol Old Vic company on Thursday, May 26. Enduringly popular the world over, it offers a fast moving farce full of good humoured gusto, sparkling wit, wonderful jokes and hysterically funny situations. At the centre is the mighty Falstaff, gullible, lovable, heroically ludicrous, bursting with life, and the merry wives themselves, spirited, sparky and supremely independent. Add to the mix young love, absurd disguises, mistaken identity, a whole host of brilliantly imagined and vividly memorable characters and a warmly genial portrait of small town Elizabethan England. The Merry Wives of Windsor is social comedy at its very finest. Wharf box office: 01822 611166.