Sir John Falstaff is a fictional character who appears in three plays by William Shakespeare.

In the two Henry IV plays, he is a companion to Prince Hal, the future King Henry V. A fat, vain, boastful, and cowardly knight, Falstaff leads the apparently wayward Prince Hal into trouble, and is ultimately repudiated after Hal becomes king.

* Falstaff ( 1799 ), Antonio Salieri's opera, with a libretto by Carlo Prospero Defranceschi, which is also based upon The Merry Wives of Windsor.

* Falstaff ( 1913 ), a " symphonic study " by Elgar, which is a sympathetic and programmatic musical portrait.

It is generally believed that Shakespeare originally named Falstaff " John Oldcastle ", and that Lord Cobham, a descendant of the historical John Oldcastle, complained, forcing Shakespeare to change the name.

In the published version of Henry IV, Part 1, Falstaff's name is always unmetrical, suggesting a name change after the original composition ; Prince Hal refers to Falstaff as " my old lad of the castle " in the first act of the play ; the epilogue to Henry IV, Part II, moreover, explicitly disavows any connection between Falstaff and Oldcastle, a dancer declaring: "... where, for anything I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat, unless already ' a be killed with your hard opinions ; for Oldcastle died a martyr and this is not the man ".

It is not clear, however, if Shakespeare characterized Falstaff as he did for dramatic purposes, or because of a specific desire to satirize Oldcastle or the Cobhams.

At any rate, The name is Falstaff in the Henry IV, part 1 quarto, of 1598, and the epilogue to the second part, published in 1600, contains this clarification:

If you be not too much cloyed with fat meat, our humble author will continue the story, with Sir John in it, and make you merry with fair Katharine of France where, for any thing I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat, unless already a ' be killed with your hard opinions ; for Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the man.

Oxford editor George Hibbard argues that, since the contemporary literature contains many allusions and references to Hamlet ( only Falstaff is mentioned more, from Shakespeare ), the play was surely performed with a frequency that the historical record misses.

Certainly the best example of this is Falstaff, Shakespeare's portly and cowardly knight.

Of course, Draper notes that Falstaff is also something of a boastful military man, but notes, “ Falstaff is so complex a character that he may well be, in effect, a combination of interlocking types .”

Also popular in the UK is Tewkesbury mustard, a blend of mustard and grated horseradish originally created in medieval times and mentioned by Shakespeare ( Falstaff says: " his wit's as thick as Tewkesbury Mustard " in Henry IV Part II ).

One prototype for this version of the town drunk is supplied by Shakespeare's Falstaff, who appears in both parts of Henry IV and in The Merry Wives of Windsor.

The Shrieves House is one of the oldest still lived in houses in the town and Shakespeare is said to have based his character of Sir John Falstaff on one of the residents, his godson's uncle.

* Sir Geraint Evans, Welsh baritone or bass-baritone noted for operatic roles including Figaro in Le nozze di Figaro, Papageno in Die Zauberflöte, and the title roles in Falstaff and Wozzeck.

* The composer Antonio Salieri wrote the opera buffa Falstaff ( 1799 ), with a libretto by Carlo Prospero Defranceschi, which also adapts the main story line of The Merry Wives of Windsor for the operatic stage.

Geraint EvansSir Geraint Llewellyn Evans ( 16 February 1922 – 19 September 1992 ) was a Welsh baritone or bass-baritone noted for operatic roles including Figaro in Le nozze di Figaro, Papageno in Die Zauberflöte, and the title roles in Falstaff and Wozzeck.

Learning that the operatic department was producing Verdi's Falstaff, he auditioned for Otto Schulmann, the vocal professor, and obtained the role of Fenton.

Verdi's last opera, Falstaff ( 1893 ), broke free of conventional form altogether and finds music which follows quick flowing simple words and because of its respect for the pattern of ordinary speech, it created a threshold for a new operatic era in which speech patterns are paramount.

The last operatic music to be heard in the old house had been the finale of Falstaff, conducted by Solti with the singers led by Bryn Terfel, in a joint opera and ballet farewell gala in July 1997.

Verdi would not attempt another operatic comedy until the end of his career with Falstaff.

Habbin then went on to consolidate his operatic training for two years at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, and has since performed with various UK opera companies in several roles, including Alfredo in La Traviata, Lt. Pinkerton in Madame Butterfly, Ernesto in Don Pasquale, Almaviva in The Barber of Seville, Alfred in Die Fledermaus and Fenton in Falstaff.

In a documentary chronicling the making of the first three Indiana Jones films, John Rhys-Davies stated that his character of Sallah was meant to be a cross between his character in Shogun, Portuguese Pilot Vasco Rodrigues, and Falstaff.

" In Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 1, Falstaff and three roguish friends of Prince Hal also waylay unwary travellers on the highway from Gravesend to Rochester, a scene also present in The Famous Victories of Henry the Fift.

He enjoys insulting his dissolute friend and makes sport of him by joining in Poins ’ plot to disguise themselves and rob and terrify Falstaff and three friends of loot they have stolen in a highway robbery, purely for the fun of watching Falstaff lie about it later, after which Hal returns the stolen money.

Mistress Page ( Julie Hughett ) and Falstaff ( John Rousseau ) in The Merry Wives of Windsor, staged by Pacific Repertory Theatre at the Golden Bough Playhouse in Carmel, CA, in 1999

There are several works about Falstaff, inspired by Shakespeare's plays:

* Falstaff ( 1893 ), Giuseppe Verdi's last opera, with a libretto by Arrigo Boito.

* Falstaff, a Hungarian TV movie based on Henry IV, part 1 and Henry IV, part 2, prepared by László Vámos and Péter Müller

* The novel Falstaff by Robert Nye.

The historical Oldcastle was unlike Falstaff ; in particular, he was a Lollard who was executed for his beliefs, and he was respected by many Protestants as a martyr.

Verdi's last opera, Falstaff, whose libretto was also by Boito, was based on Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor and Victor Hugo's subsequent translation.

Hamburg first saw Falstaff on 2 January 1894, conducted by Gustav Mahler.

Smile | Smiling can imply a sense of humour and a state of amusement, as in this painting of Falstaff by Eduard von Grützner.

* 1893: Falstaff by Giuseppe Verdi

" He points to the example of Verdi's Falstaff, whose musical text contains substantial contributions from the leader of the orchestra of La Scala which were apparently welcomed by the composer.

In 1966 Visconti's luscious Falstaff for the Vienna State Opera conducted by Leonard Bernstein was critically acclaimed.

The original audiences would thus have already been familiar with the title character, who was depicted in the Henry IV plays as a wild, undisciplined lad known as " Prince Harry " and by Falstaff as " Hal ".

Another of Gobbi's contemporaries was the Welshman Geraint Evans, who famously sang Falstaff at Glyndebourne and created the roles of Mr. Flint and Mountjoy in works by Benjamin Britten.

File: Eduard von Grützner Falstaff mit Handschuhen. jpg | Shakespeare's Sir John Falstaff by Eduard von Grützner

Sir John Fastolf, the inspiration for Shakespeare's Falstaff, was buried here in December 1459, next to his wife Millicent in a new aisle built by Fastolf on the South side of the abbey church.

* A concert performance in 2008 by Opera Ireland of Balfe's Falstaff was originally broadcast by RTÉ Lyric FM and later released on CD as RTÉ LyricFM LYRICCD119, available from Naxos.