Much Ado About Nothing
The Royal Shakespeare Theatre
Stratford-upon-Avon
 

ARGUABLY Shakespeare’s least poetic play, Much Ado About Nothing demonstrates his consummate stage craftsmanship in welding themes, moods, and theatrical styles together.

Centred on contrasted couples, with the conventionally enamoured Claudio and compliant Hero set against the modern combative witty scepticism of Benedick and Beatrice, the play questions the nature of love in a context which moves from high to tragi-comedy, laced with farce, and beset with intrigue, deceit and trickery.

However, one wouldn’t necessarily gather this from Roy Alexander Weise’s new production of Shakespeare’s mixed bag of a rom-com which could be summed up in Benedick’s description of Mohammed Mansaray’s love-struck Claudio’s language — “a very fantastical banquet, just so many strange dishes.”
 
In fact, the credit, if that is the right term, for this audience-delighting show should rightly go to Melissa Simon-Hartman, whose array of exotic costumes tend to overpower the eye at the expense of the words.