Royal Shakespeare Theatre Stratford-Upon-Avon – until 24th May 2025
Reviewed by Amarjeet Singh
3***
Swap a victorious battle for a triumphant football match, soldiers for footballers and you have director Michael Longhurst celebrity spin on a Shakespearean romantic romp. Top players Claudio and Benedick play for FC Messina, the latter a confirmed bachelor, the prior falls in love with Hero, an aspiring popstar and the daughter of Leonato, a club owner. A huge WaG wedding is planned, but Claudio is deceived by a malicious deep fake plot and denounces Hero as unchaste before they marry. She faints at the alter and is believed dead, but all is not what it seems. Hero’s cousin Beatrice, a feisty football commentator, and confirmed singleton, is caught up in a plot with Benedick, both are duped into believing the other is in love with them. Denying their true feelings, he attempts to win Beatrice over by defending Hero’s honour and challenging his friend Claudio for trashing Hero’s reputation.
I can’t help but feel that Longhurst drops the ball a bit with this rendition. There are some very clever ideas and elements with the use of multimedia and its ability to amplify and distort gossip in this modern world. Unfortunately, it’s all a bit much. Screens, cameras, jacuzzies, statues, fountains, karaoke, projected messages, fellatio, threesomes and then some, all distract from the actual theatrical performances. The football setting genuinely works, but by the second half of the play, the motif is mostly redundant.
A beautiful working jacuzzi/pool/fountain sits centre stage upon a marble effect floor. There are banner screens around the top of the stage and a large screen angled at the top front facing and the back. These work brilliantly in the beginning. Entering the theatre we are treated to a match like feel, the sound of a roaring crowd, seeing the banner score scroll across the screen lets us know the winning score. The players come running onto the stage, into a dressing room to cool off in the pool. Designed by Jon Bausor and lit by Jack Knowles, it’s stunning, but elements are distracting. Characters running on wet floors set my heart racing whilst knocked chairs left on stage during the wedding threatened to trip characters up. Tal Rosner’s social media notifications and messages repeatedly popping up on screen were sorely overused as were video footage and cameras.
There is a heavy leaning into the dark misogynistic shaming of a woman over rumours of her having an illicit tryst. How quickly she goes from Hero to zero. The trolling, the unexpected rejection from her doting daddy, double standards and quite sinister imagery. The American Horror Story bulls head and naked torso before a threesome were particularly disturbing. These didn’t quite marry up with the immediate candyfloss happy ending, when suddenly everything was happily ever after.
There were some great comedic moments, Benedick overhearing the news that Beatrice is in love with him whilst trying to hide behind a masseuse table and his wonderful escape into the pool was perfection. However, some of the jarring Watch scenes could have happily been edited out. This production is wonderfully and diversely cast. Freema Agyeman and Nick Blood sizzle as Beatrice and Benedick, delighting us with their dance of denial, chemistry oozing from them with every curse and kiss. Daniel Adeosun plays the cocky Claudio confidently, alongside Eleanor Worthington-Cox’s poised performance as Hero, they make a couple worthy of the cover of any WaG’s mag. Tanya Franks is a potent Antonio, challenging chauvinism. Antonio Magros and Nick Cavalieres have brilliant comic timing as the Watch even if the scenes were occasionally out of place in this production. Oliver Huband is wonderfully smooth, suave and sophisticated as Don Pedro, perfectly balancing out Peter Forbes’ smarmy Leonato.
This version of Much Ado About Nothing feels forced and full on. Longhurst, overwhelms and overstimulates audiences by throwing everything into it, so we lose the authenticity and simplicity of Shakespeare’s tale and are left waiting for a streaker on the pitch.