Much Ado About Nothing at the National Theatre, review: Pop Shakespeare at its finest
Much Ado About Nothing is Shakespeare for people who don’t like Shakespeare. Alongside A Midsummer Night’s Dream, it’s one of the Bard’s funniest and least demanding offerings, which has given rise to a degree of snobbishness about it. Kenneth Branagh’s 90s version, in which he plays a brilliant Benedict, is a landmark modern edition of the play, but purists call it Shakespeare ‘gone to Hollywood.’
Well, those who disliked Branagh’s Much Ado will want to blacklist the National Theatre from their social calendars for a few months, because this version is amongst the silliest there ever has been – and it’s all the better for it.
Set within the grounds of the lavish Hotel Messina on the Italian Riviera, Anna Fleischle’s set is a warm embrace of terracotta balconies, communal squares and public baths. It’s a delightful setting for that most classic of the back-slapping 16th century jokes: mistaken identity.
Beatrice and Benedict are longer in the tooth than the average young lovers, but both still struggle to face their true emotions. She is proud and superior, he a force of dizzying chaos wherever he goes, falling out of hammocks and getting covered in ice cream on the daily. Actor John Heffernan’s Benedict is a ball of warm energy opposite The IT’s Crowd’s Katherine Parkinson, whose Beatrice doesn’t tinker much with the classically standoffish vision of her we have in our head, although that’s not to her detriment.
Fans of Much Ado will know there is a particularly cherishable scene towards the end of Act 1 in which the two would-be lovers are set up by the principal cast. Don Pedro, Claudio, and Leonato shout loudly about Beatrice’s supposed affection for Benedict so that he can hear from afar, and then Beatrice overhears that Benedict supposedly has the eyes for her too, thanks to the same trick played by Hero and two waiting women Margaret and Ursula.
Director Simon Godwin’s interpretation of the scene is wonderfully mad. With Benedict hidden in an ice cream trolley, the boys pretend they don’t notice him there as they prepare desserts while discussing Beatrice’s supposed feelings, dispensing hundreds and thousands on top of Benedict where he hides.
But this cast does tragedy too. During Hero and Claudio’s wedding, when Claudio believes his future wife has been sleeping outside of their marriage, they conjure true devastation. Shout-out particularly to Hero’s father Leonato, who, played by Rufus Wright, appears broken with grief at the altar. (While we’re doing shout-outs, Celeste Dodwell’s Ursula is a hoot as eccentric waiting woman Ursula, nailing some of the best shouting I’ve heard on stage in years. You forget how funny inappropriate loudness can be.)
Godwin – an old hand at Shakespeare having done Romeo & Juliet, Twelfth Night and Antony & Cleopatra for the National – keeps the tone from veering into try-hard territory. I’d encourage fans of the tragedies to give this a go – if you still hate it, I’d encourage you to ask yourself why.
Much Ado About Nothing runs at the National Theatre until 10 September; click here to book tickets