The two outstanding Shakespeare productions of 1979 were the RSC Pericles at the Other Place in Stratford and the National Theatre’s As You Like It: both broke new ground. But the main Stratford season was exceptionally uneven, and no neat summary is possible for so very disparate a group of plays and productions as those covered by this article, including the 1978 Antony and Cleopatra which opened too late for review last year.

Even in what he called a 'year of consolidation', Trevor Nunn's ostensibly 'new' Merry Wives of Windsor amounted to little more than a refining and paring down of the previous RSC production by Terry Hands. Production ideas were carried over: children played conkers between scenes; there was a strong contrast between the rural accents of the Windsor citizens and the aristocrats Fenton and Falstaff; the finale in Windsor Forest was a Hallowe'en revel.