Falstaff
Falstaff is a fictional character who appears in three plays by William Shakespeare. Round and glorious, tradition holds that Shakespeare wrote the part for his second comedian, a fat man, John Heminge, who played a bold, bawdy humor of a John Candy sort. An alternative theory is that Falstaff was written for Will Kemp, the clown of Shakespeare's company. The original actor was later succeeded by John Lowin, another portly comic actor. Flush with flatulent humor, Falstaff still managed to embody a kind of depth common to Shakespeare's tricky comedy. In Act II, Scene III of Henry V, his death is described by the character "Hostess", possibly the bar-lady Mistress Quickly, who describes his body in terms that echo the description of the death of Socrates.He appears in the following plays:
He is mentioned, but does not appear in the text of Henry V. However, many stage and film adaptations have seen it necessary to include Falstaff for the insight he provides into King Henry V's character. The most notable examples in cinema are Laurence Olivier's 1946 movie and Kenneth Branagh's 1989 movie, both of which draw additional material from the Henry IV plays.Orson Welles's Chimes at Midnight (1965) compiles the two Henry IV plays into a single, condensed storyline, while adding a handful of scenes from Henry V. The movie, also known as Falstaff, features Welles himself in the title role.
Giuseppe Verdi's last opera, Falstaff, with libretto by Arrigo Boito, is an opera buffa, based primarily on The Merry Wives of Windsor.