Much Ado About Nothing (RSC) @ BBC iPlayer
April 21, 2022
Roy Alexander Weise’s Much Ado about Nothing is a landmark RSC production in several respects. It’s the first full-scale main-stage production directed by a Black director at the RSC (in 2022!), and the first ‘repeat’ production to interrupt the RSC’s now eight-year project to stage the whole canon. The filmed version of the production also deviates from …
Much Ado about Nothing (Northern Broadsides) @ Derby Theatre
March 28, 2019
Conrad Nelson’s swansong production for Northern Broadsides offered a paeon to rural England in its mise-en-scene. A huge cyclorama showed sprawling green fields; sheep baa-ed in the distance and birds tweeted. Lis Evans’s set located the production at the close of World War II, with ‘Dig for Victory!’ posters lining flats at the side of …
Love’s Labour’s Won [Much Ado about Nothing] (RSC/Live from Stratford) @ The Broadway, Nottingham
March 6, 2015
Where Christopher Luscombe’s Love’s Labour’s Lost was a pleasant surprise, its self-parodic wit trumping the pull towards nostalgia and self-indulgence that the period setting might have implied, Love’s Labour’s Won had the opposite effect on me. Here, a series of uncomfortable decisions underwritten by unpleasant assumptions marred a production that had a great deal of …
Much Ado About Nothing (dir. Joss Whedon) @ Shakespeare Association of America conference, Toronto
March 30, 2013
Joss Whedon introduced a special advance preview screening of his new movie of Much Ado about Nothing last night (alas, via pre-recorded video) with a tribute to the teachers and professors who had instilled him with a love of Shakespeare. In allowing the Shakespeare Association of America annual conference in Toronto to get an early …
Much Ado about Nothing (RSC) @ The Courtyard Theatre
August 12, 2012
If the RSC’s recent production of Julius Caesar was the company’s attempt to “do” a version of Africa with an all-Black British cast, then Iqbal Khan’s new production of Much Ado About Nothing attempts to do the same for India. Both offer problems to my mind in terms of their relation to the rest of …
Much Ado about Nothing (Demi–Paradise Productions) @ Lancaster Castle
February 26, 2012
Writing about web page http://www.demiparadiseproductions.co.uk/index.html Location can be a blessing or a curse for a production. Site-specific theatre is one thing, where the play is written or adapted specifically for the area in which it will be realised; but Shakespeare transplanted into grand locations can run the risk of not mapping consistently onto its surroundings, …
Much Ado About Nothing (Mappa Mundi/Theatr Mwldan) @ Lakeside Arts Centre
November 10, 2011
Writing about web page http://www.mappa-mundi.org.uk/current-shows Expectations were set high by Welsh company Mappa Mundi’s self-description of its work: "gloriously irreverent, populist and accessible." A fun-loving Much Ado is always to be welcomed, and the setting – Britain between the wars, a culture where women have been taking on traditional men’s roles – offered an interesting …
Much Ado @ Wyndham’s Theatre
June 19, 2011
I want to make clear – I have NOT seen Much Ado about Nothing at Wyndham’s Theatre, starring Catherine Tate and David Tennant. Quite simply, I couldn’t afford it. I was also sceptical about what appeared to be a particularly cynical production aimed at the West End. The two most popular stars of the most …
Days of Significance (RSC) @ The Belgrade Theatre
November 4, 2009
Writing about web page http://www.daysofsignificance.co.uk/page/1/home Roy Williams’ play debuted as part of the RSC’s Complete Works Festival back in early 2007, and it’s a pleasure to have the chance to revisit a production I enjoyed so much the first time round. The play has gone from strength to strength since its initial short run, and …
Much Ado in Coventry
January 19, 2009
WUDS are doing another production of Much Ado about Nothing this term. I say another; only people who’ve been at Warwick four or five years will remember the last one, which was performed in the Arts Centre studio. I remember that production for the prominence it gave to Margaret, whose dilemma regarding the plot to …
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