Emma Pallant and Katherine Pearce are formidable opponents to Falstaff's buffoonery Shakespeare's Prince Hal may have rejected Sir John Falstaff as a symbol of his misspent youth, but the real-life monarch Queen Elizabeth I couldn't get enough of him. Accounts vary of who precisely commissioned The Merry Wives of Windsor " or as some might call it, Falstaff III " but a key factor was known to be Elizabeth's desire to…
