There are more coveted roles for Shakespearean actors: Hamlet, Richard, MacBeth or Othello.

But when Shakespeare penned Falstaff – the anti hero of Henry IV Part 1 – he imbued him with a rich seam of tragi-comedy.

And Sir Antony Sher proved last night (Canterbury’s Marlowe until November 15) that there is no better miner of humour.

Falstaff is a knight-braggart of the highest order, a cowardly villain, whose disloyalty to Prince Hal, his drinking buddies and his mistress is only surpassed by his drinking and thieving.

He should be a figure to be despised and pitied, but like Rik Mayall’s eponymous TV scoundrel Alan B’Stard, Sher manages to make him into a lovable rogue.

You may not approve of Falstaff’s amoral lifestyle...but you just know he would be fun to be around.

From the moment this rotund oaf falls out the same bed where Hal is enjoying a ménage-a-trois demanding the time of day, he is compulsive viewing.

Even the Prince’s rebuke: “What a devil hast thou to do with the time of the day? Unless hours were cups of sack and minutes capons and clocks the tongues of bawds..” can’t shake Falstaff’s overblown self-confidence.

The Henry plays - set against Prince Hal’s father’s turbulent reign in the 1400s - are sometimes viewed as dusty historical dramas.

But Gregory Doran’s slick direction of his talented RSC cast ensures it is fast paced, full of verve and never dull...and thanks to Sher there are plenty of laughs.

When you follow the Machiavellian intrigue by power-hungry tribal leaders, Edmund Mortimer, Owen Glendower and the Earl of Douglas – casually carving up Britain with a stick on a giant map – it is hard not to think how little has changed in politics in 600 years!

And at the centre of the unrest is the hot-headed Hotspur – aka Harry Percy – played by the wonderful Trevor White with the kind of jack-in-the-box temperament that today he would have been on an ASBO and his parents urged to stop giving him sugary drinks!

This is a young man who prefers fighting to loving - all he needs is to be wound-up and pointed in the direction of the enemy.

Played out against the inevitable showdown in Shrewsbury between Henry IV's forces and the rebels, we also witness the emergence of Hal from being one of the Jeunesse Doree into a king in the making.

It is easy to see why Henry initially envies the Earl of Northumberland’s son to his wastrel of a surrogate son, who spends his time whoring and boozing with Falstaff and his pals Ned Poins, Peto and Bardolph in low taverns.

But Hal, played by Alex Hassall, slowly emerges from his drunken stupor and infantile antics to take his place by the side of his under siege father and finally defeat Hotspur in battle.

Although battle scenes are always difficult to replicate on stage, Doran manages to convey the theatre of war with bowmen and swordsmen convincingly.

And in between there are wonderful cameo roles, like Paola Dionisotti, who is commanding as Falstaff’s much put-upon lover. If Mistress Quickly were set in today’s world...she would be on the Jeremy Kyle Show!

Yet it's Sher – who has successfully played tortured heros Richard III, Shylock and Leontes – who reveals he is not only the master of Shakespeare’s darker characters but is just as brilliant in comic roles.

Shakespeare certainly provided Falstaff with great lines but Sher showed he can deliver each pompous boast, each lie and every outrageous threat from this vainglorious, gout-ridden, devious villain with such timing that he never misses his target once.

Paul Hooper

DETAILS: Henry IV Parts I and II are at Canterbury’s Marlowe Theatre until Saturday, November 15. Tickets cost from £14. For performance times and full details, visitwww.marlowetheate.com or call 01227 787787.