'Much Ado About Nothing' - National Theatre

Tonight got the New Year off to a good start with an excellent production of 'Much Ado About Nothing' at the National Theatre with Zoe Wanamaker as Beatrice and Simon Russell Beale as Benedick, the unlikely (but most likely) lovers. It also featured Mark Addy and Trevor Peacock (reprising his Dibley role) as the comic turns (there's always a comic turn). And it featured music and dancing and rip-roaring jest and wit! Oh, and dodgy morality (of course).

I've never seen it before, either on stage or film and haven't read it (that I recall) but I'm familiar with the story. I want to see more Shakespeare on the stage so this was a good opportunity to start the year off with some culture. Throughout the first half I kept thinking to myself that some of the word-play and wit would have been totally lost on me reading the words on a page - they come alive when spoken from the mouths of experienced actors in a good production. It was also interesting to have more, ahem, mature leads rather than youngsters which adds another dimension to the play, both in terms of happiness for them when they finally get together at the end but also a drop of sadness for the lost years.

It's the story of two sets of lovers, the 'anti-lovers' Beatrice and Benedick who despise all things to do with marriage for themselves and any notion of romance, and Hero and Claudio, the young lovers whose love falls apart over false accusations of harlotry (a nice word) and infidelity. It's a testament to the power of Shakespeare's writing and the production that, 400 years after he wrote it, I was still engaged and outraged at the treatment of poor Hero (an odd name for a girl). Her father believes the accusations of Claudio and the Prince before even hearing what his own daughter has to say by hoping she won't wake up from her faint following accusations of being a tart.

At least Beatrice has the guts to want revenge on foul Claudio. And I'm fully on her side in that. My outrage went up a notch at the end when Hero's father is still happy for her to (foolishly in my view) marry him because he was duped too... Duped? The bastard had already planned to expose her during their wedding ceremony in church in front of everyone before he even had any 'proof' of her tartiness. I dislike him, the beardless, callow youth, and I don't care if it was only a play! I'll give him a piece of my mind if we ever meet in the street - that's no way to behave and just because you're a Count doesn't give you any moral superiority. Ooops, pardon me, but back then it did...

Anyways, it was excellent and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The actress playing Hero annoyed me a bit by lack of projection and diction (I could hardly make out what she was saying a few times) but she was ok - I preferred the feisty Margaret, her sidekick. The Prince was suitably pompous and full of himself and Claudio deserved to be horsewhipped and then hung, drawn and quartered (am I reacting too much, I wonder?). I loved the music and songs, very mariarchi and very well delivered on stage and from the balconies.

The stars of the production were Zoe and Simon, the stage almost visibly brightening virtually every time Zoe came on. They both played it for laughs big time and were excellent. The sheer unexpectedness of Simon jumping in the fish pond to avoid being discovered overhearing people talk about him and then having it duplicated only slightly differently by Zoe was a stroke of genius, that feeling of 'no they won't do it again' with Zoe and then in she goes was wicked! And it was with no small measure of pleasure at the end when they finally agree to marry and go dancing round the stage - that was wonderful. I'm a big ole softy.

But what was it with beards? Lots of references to beards on-stage and insults to Claudio about being beardless and when I looked around at half time the audience was awash with beards! Well, the male part of the audience, particularly over a certain age. How odd. And why do people simply *have* to cough during the quiet bits? I really felt like shouting 'shut up' at one point.

It's an excellent production and Zoe and Simon were a joy to watch. Go and see it if you can. You don't *have* to have a beard to be allowed in (but it helps).