Why did audiences laugh in Shakespeare's day, why do they still laugh now? What did Shakespeare do with the conventions of comedy that he inherited, so that his plays continue to amuse and move audiences? What do his comedies have to say about love, sex, gender, power, family, community, and class? What place have pain, cruelty, and even death in a comedy? Why all those puns?

These questions have fascinated me for at least thirty years of my professional life. I am grateful to Sarah Stanton for the opportunity finally to explore them and to begin to map out their connections. I must also thank my colleagues at the University of Sydney, particularly the members of the Early Modern Literature and Culture group, for providing clues and answers to odd matters. Kirsten Tranter was an imaginative and thorough research assistant, and I have enjoyed many illuminating conversations with drama specialists Kate Flaherty and Margaret Rogerson.

My daughter Virginia Gay read the whole book from the double perspective of Shakespeare enthusiast and professional actress; I am profoundly grateful for her insights and her insistence on clarity. As my test reader, she kept me to the book's aim: simply to help twenty-first-century readers, theatre-goers, and actors find their bearings and increase their enjoyment of plays which – as Duke Theseus says – ‘need no excuse’.

Quotations from Shakespeare's plays are from the individual editions of the New Cambridge Shakespeare, wherever possible; other editions, where used, are indicated in the notes.