![](https://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/2672_1481890736.jpg)
Show: Much Ado About Nothing
Society: Royal Shakespeare Company – RSC (professional)
Venue: Theatre Royal, Haymarket
Credits: William Shakespeare
Type: Sardines
Author: Chris Abbott
Performance Date: 15/12/2016
Much Ado About Nothing
Chris Abbott | 16 Dec 2016 12:10pm
The Company of RSC and Chichester Festival Theatres Much Ado About Nothing. Photo: Manuel Harlan
The great Hall from Love’s Labour’s Lost has now become a military hospital at the opening of Much Ado About Nothing, and the men are home from the War. Although there is no attempt to suggest these are exactly the same people as seen in the earlier play, it is one of the strengths of this pairing and Christopher Luscombe’s production that this feels exactly like a sequel, especially in the growing but changing relationship between different layers of society on a grand estate which can stand perhaps for a country.
Once again, Edward Bennett and Lisa Dillon have the central roles, this time as the warring and then reconciled Benedick and Beatrice in this more familiar play. This time, Bennett is resisting love rather than seeking it, and Dillon is suitably uninterested, at least to begin with, in return. We see their interactions against the background of Hall and Village, with the serious authority of the military contrasted with the high-handed aspirations of the local watch, with Nick Haverson once again in a leading role, this time at Dogberry. It’s a wordy role which can be tedious in less assured hands, but we are offered here another but contrasting physical performance, tinged with sadness and with great control.
Around Dogberry, the rest of the watch do their best to fulfil their duties but inevitably arrest the wrong men. The scene in their crowded kitchen is a master class in comic business but also remains true to the text. This setting is one of several provided by designer Simon Higlett, building on the settings for the earlier play but with subtle indications of changing times, as with the poppies in Love’s Labour’s Lost. The passing of time is also indicated by the change in costume, especially for the women, their role in society changing and this being reflected in what they are wearing.
If one of the strength of this pair of productions is the close understanding between director and designer, another is without doubt the music from Nigel Hess. There is a beautiful setting of Sigh No More, one of the songs in Shakespeare which has been most often set by musicians. Although there is a suitably sombre tone at first, the elegiac mood of the earlier play eventually gives way to a more frivolous tone as the inter-war years approach, with Harry Waller’s Balthasar singing from the piano like Coward at a party.
All the relationships in the play convince, especially the central pairing, and Lisa Dillon even manages to make us believe that, just for a moment, she really wants Claudio to be killed; and Bennett has a great facility for taking the audience into his confidence without stepping out of character. Rebecca Collingwood is a heartfelt and affecting Hero opposite the confused and wronged Claudio of Tunji Kasim. Characters change too in tune with the times; and when Nick Haverson’s Dogberry realises his ineffectiveness, the actor changes the mood from laughter to abject sadness, wrenching sympathy from the audience as he disappears from view on the receding platform: a great performance.
The mood darkens as the planned wedding goes astray, although not before designer Higlett adds a convincing church to all the other settings; and there follows the standard ending of a Shakespearean comedy with all resolved and happy endings for most. The joyful dance with which the production ends serves as a coda to these most suitably paired texts; Love’s Labour’s Lost but then Love’s Labour’s Won again. The RSC production of The Comedy of Errors in the 1970s reclaimed that play and introduced it to many theatregoers; Christopher Luscombe’s paired productions have done the same for Love’s Labour’s Lost and made us think anew about Much Ado About Nothing. Each play adds to our understanding of the other; and the skill and invention of director, designer and composer get the utmost from a talented company.
- : admin
- : 15/12/2016