Falstaff

Sir John 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 Heminges, 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 death of Socrates.

See also

• Falstaff is also the name of a British rocket. See Falstaff (rocket).
• Falstaff is an American beer originally produced by Lemp Brewing in 1903 and discontinued in 2005. In its later years, it was brewed by Pabst.