Much Ado About Nothing Review: A Riot of Romcom Energy

The Stage is Set for Romance and Comedy

This elegant, effervescent production of Shakespeare's problem play has all the markings of a sure summer blockbuster. The testy flirtation and linguistic sparring between avowed singletons Beatrice (Pippa Nixon) and Benedick (Ken Nwosu) is full of romcom energy. The comical eavesdropping that leads to their gulling is such silly fun. The music and dance is simply gorgeous; so are the costumes with their warm palette of pinks, light greys and lemons.

A World of Fine Staging and Comedy

The production, under Chelsea Walker's direction, is a riot of fine staging, big on comedy, beautiful in sound and optics, adept at shifting the atmosphere, often with the help of the excellent live band (drum-like disturbances and nervy violin).

Balancing Light and Dark Themes

There is an overarching sense of frolics that convey this play's sense of revelry and romance as Don Pedro (Adam Long) and his soldiers return to Messina from war, with Claudio (Joshua John) fast falling for Leonato's daughter, Hero (Assa Kanouté), and so precipitating the dark turning point of their aborted wedding.

A Strong Cast Brings the Story to Life

The cast is universally adept, particularly Nixon as the witty and stridently single Beatrice. She makes her part more tartly outraged by Benedick but still physically playful. Nwosu is a softer-edged Benedick with great comic timing, inflecting his lines with arch asides.

A Production Worth Seeing

It's a world which is abstractly modern and its modernity hangs in the air, not quite of our time in its reverberations around false charges towards women and sexual smearing. But in its charms it is winning: insuppressibly crowd-pleasing, eminently worth seeing.