MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING: Shakespeare. To 31 August.
Tour.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING
by William Shakespeare.
The Lord Chamberlain’s Men Tour to 31 August 2008.
Runs: 2hr One interval.
Review: Alan Geary: 6 July at Newstead Abbey.
It’s all-male, but there’s no drag or comic camp; instead you get outstanding acting.
This isn’t Shakespeare’s best play - the plot’s a bit creaky. But it features Beatrice and Benedick, two of his greatest creations, and it’s done here by one of England’s finest touring companies.
The Lord Chamberlain’s Men are an all-male troupe so females are played by men, but there’s no suggestion of drag or comic camp; instead you get outstanding acting. The play, fairly unusually these days, is done in Elizabethan costume; but, more crucially, it’s presented inside an overall Elizabethan context so that you experience it much as the earliest audiences did.
The playful cut and thrust between Beatrice (Nick Huntington) and Benedick (Edward Harrison) and the latter’s soliloquies are beautifully done. And the dramatic irony when each is trying to convince himself that he isn’t in love with the other is touching as well as funny.
Other comical highlights are the two paralleled eavesdropping scenes, which remind you of Twelfth Night - you’re reminded also of Romeo and Juliet when Friar Francis suggests the idea of feigning Hero’s death.
As always with the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, projection and diction are flawless. Some tuneful and well composed songs are a major feature of this production, and they’re delivered with vigour; there’s none of that nasal unpleasantness too often used in open-air Shakespeare, and a total absence of that bogus accent peculiar to Folk-Singerland.
Benedick/Verges: Edward Harrison.
Don Pedro/Sexton/Conrade: David Hughes.
Don John/Dogberry/Friar Francis: Peter Stickney.
Beatrice/Hugh Oatcake: Nick Huntington.
Claudio/Sam Appletree: Tom Micklem.
Hero/Borachio: Andrew Young.
Leonato/George Seacoal/Margaret: Darren Hill.
Director: Andrew Normington.
Designer: Morgan Brind.
Musical Director: Jonathan Yesten.
Choreographer: Darren Royston.
Costume: Jemima Penny.
2008-07-10 02:03:37