Much Ado About Nothing at Shakespeare’s Globe

The Globe’s production of William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing ushers in summer with its witty wordplay, naughty mischief-making and deliciously satisfying Shakespearean denouement to set the world right.

The famed theatre, rightly named, has the ability to transport audiences through time and place, connecting us to 400 years of treasured history. This circular realm of escapism allowed viewers to land upon faraway shores they had never visited before, and the same remains true today for modern audiences.

This comedy takes us to the paradisal Sicilian town of Messina. Filled with a multitude of misunderstandings, lovers who love each other but then they don’t but then they do, lovers who pretend to hate each other but in fact love each other, and a villainous plot to separate lovers and spoil a perfectly good wedding – this play is going to keep you on your toes.

A highlight within this will-they-won’t-they entanglement is the love-hate relationship between Benedick (Ekow Quartey), a self-proclaimed player within the dating field, and the fiercely sharp-witted and (virtuous) man-eater Beatrice (Amalia Vitale). Their flirtatious jesting and constant waggish roasting of one another make it hard for our love-at-first-sight couple, Hero (Lydia Fleming) and Claudio (Adam Wadsworth), to stand out.

The slapstick humour of our Watchmen, Dogberry (Jonnie Broadbent) and his assistant Verges (Colm Gormley), also make for a hilarious pair. Their bumbling malapropisms and general foolishness have the audience rooting for this double act.

Act II is a particular delight. Leonato’s (John Lightbody) masked ball both celebrates the end of the war and foreshadows the deception and trickery to come. Bright and colourful beastly masks of wild animals disguise characters, allowing them to enact games and counterfeit, reinforcing the trope of mistaken identity, which drives the plot as they undertake a semi-human dance. The live band used throughout also allows characters to break the fourth wall, playing comical Tudor jigs, which the audience are encouraged to jeer along to in true Elizabethan theatre tradition.

Each character’s costume is a feast for the eyes, an explosion of colour with nods to period style and Italian fashion. Folds of heavy fabrics and layers of mixed velvety and rougher textures in cobalt blues, nectar apricots, sunshine yellows, sunset reds and liquid golds. The stage is laden with baskets of sweet oranges as honey-coloured fruit trees climb the backdrop in full stretch, basking in the summer warmth. Drunk on Shakespeare’s idyllic Italy, one almost forgets the typical British drizzle hitting the groundlings.

This play thrives on saying one thing and meaning another, ironically and playfully pushing tropes to their limits, exploring mature cynicism with an awareness of social realities. However, all’s well that ends well, and this play does very well for itself indeed!

Olivia Gardener
Images: Marc Brenner

Much Ado About Nothing is at Shakespeare’s Globe from 4^th May until 24^th August 2024. For further information or to book visit the theatre’s website here.