Review – Much Ado About Nothing
In London, it's not just the buses that come along all at once - this summer, two separate productions of Much Ado About Nothing landed. I didn't see the version at The Globe, but having seen David Tennant and Catherine Tate's first official announcement that they were starring in a version, there was absolutely no way that The Mrs and I weren't going to be seeing this. I mean, come on - it's The Doctor and Donna.
We've debated the point of non-period productions of Shakespeare before. Broadly speaking, The Mrs disapproves. Less broadly speaking, I disapprove sometimes. I actually avoided letting on that this wasn't period beforehand to avoid any issues, but in the end I didn't need to bother - the production itself won him over.
And actually, it IS period, just not its original period. Director Josie Rourke transplanted the setting to early 1980s Gibraltar, making the conflict from which Don Pedro and his men have returned The Falklands War, and setting up a convincingly insular kind of world in which the well-off drift around the place in swimwear with drinks in their hands. It's all helped by a really clever set design based around only four columns and a lot of use of the revolve.
Cast-wise, (before we get to the inevitable) I'd call it about a 90% success. Don Pedro and Leonato work well together, and Claudio and Hero make a winning couple, if a somewhat wet one, though to be fair that's in the writing more than the performances. Dogberry, meanwhile, comes close to stealing the show. Conversely, a couple of the actors in minor roles don't seem very bothered, and a couple of others seem a little ill-fit. Don John, in particular, looks at times as though he's being played as if Mark Heap had been cast in the role but wasn't actually available. Arguably, having the conniving villain also be the screaming closet case should itself make me more annoyed, but mostly I was too busy enjoying other stuff to care.
Much of this other stuff comes from Tate and Tennant (I'm getting there), but also from Rourke's admirable decision to play this comedy as actually funny, rather than just witty and arch, which is what you usually get. There is plenty of background incident (Tennant's initial arrival in a golf cart sets the tone) and broad verbal delivery, but most obviously there are scenes of out-and-out slapstick that work brilliantly. I've certainly laughed frequently in productions of this play, but I've never laughed as much as at this one, and judging by the clearly delighted audience, I wasn't the only one enjoying it.
But of course we're not here to see all that, we're here to see Tennant and Tate (well, mostly, it is after all a brilliant play on its own accord 
) and they don't disappoint. Tennant plays Benedick broadly, with his own natural accent, I was pleased to note, and conveys a clever, honourable man playing the clown as much for effect as for real. Tate's Beatrice on the other hand, feels authentically sharp and weary of men - though importantly never bitter or shrewish, if certainly 'shrewd', as she's described more than once. Their interplay feels exactly like the re-commencement of an ongoing sparring match that just went on hold when he went off to war, and they instill the relationship with more than enough authenticity. Whenever they're on stage together, the energy level rises, and both make much and effective use of non-verbal communication - there's a moment the night before Hero's wedding when the 'stag' and 'hen' parties cross over and Beatrice and Benedick spot each other that's played totally wordlessly and is totally priceless. They make you want to know what their life beyond the end of the play will be like, which must be seen as a victory.
The sense that this cast is just having a bloody good time is highlighted in one detail that we have to assume isn't a nightly occurrence, though what marked last night out I don't know. The was a lot of unplanned laughter on the stage. At one point, confronting Tennant covered in paint, Tate had to make three efforts to get her line out through the laughter, glaring at the audience as we laughed at her hysteria (which made us worse) before exiting to a huge round of applause. Brilliantly, it was on a line which Benedick then repeats when alone, giving Tennent the chance to ad-lib the triple repetition and causing Tate to come back on stage to glare again at both him and us. Later, by the closing scenes, Claudio couldn't complete a line through his laughter. It's all a bit unprofessional, of course, but honestly, when they were giving us such a good time, I think everyone present was probably willing to let them off with enjoying themselves.
This is the second production of Much Ado I've discussed on this here blog. The last, back in 2007, was one of the best productions I'd ever seen. The Rourke/Tate/Tennant version, while entirely different, probably tops it. And makes me want to see the stars keep on working together - imagine them in something by Wilde, or Noel Coward...