MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. To 18 March.

Manchester

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING
by William Shakespeare

Library Theatre To 18 March 2006
Mon-Thu 7.30pm Fri-Sat 8pm Mat Sat & 22 Feb, 1 March 3pm 8, 15 March 2pm
Audio-described 15 March 7.30pm, 18 March 3pm
BSL Signed 1 March 7.30pm
Captioned 6 March
Pre-show talk 23 Feb 6.30pm, 11 March 2pm
Playday 8, 15 March 10.30am (+ 2pm show)
Runs 2hr 50min One interval

TICKETS: 0161 236 7110
www.librarytheatre.com
Review: Timothy Ramsden

Strong central performances and intelligent direction recommend this production.
At first sight Chris Honer’s production, with its 2 neat colonnades at angles to each other, takes us back to days when neatness, light and historical period were de rigeur in Shakespeare. The war from which the men return at the start seems, from the costumes, be more of Napoleon’s era than the Armada’s, while the women lining up to greet them with smiles have all the busy-ness of an operetta chorus-line.

In part the set’s a sign of the Library Theatre’s limited staging facilities, offering no space for scene changes. But it’s also characteristic of Honer’s approach. There have been more innovative Much Ados, but this is an honest, intelligent production with many points to recommend it.

In this play, witty characters are outwitted by a taciturn malcontent, whose plans are foiled by honest dullards led by someone who mangles the English language. While the mutual love beneath Beatrice and Benedick's pose of hostility is unmasked by their friends’ benevolent tricks, the innocent passion of Hero and Claudio is near-ruined by Don John’s motiveless malevolence.

David Gyasi’s direct Claudio shows the strong, uncomplicated passion which is easy prey to others’ stratagems while Erin Brodie‘s Hero collapses when jilted at the altar into eventual near-trauma. Hero’s naive innocence is transparent as her servant Margaret talks saucily while preparing her mistress’s hair for the wedding. Margaret’s the unwitting cause of Hero’s distress and is reduced to near panic when she realises how she’s been manipulated.

Peter Lindford’s Benedick is an upright soldier, visibly put out of countenance when forced to swallow the rose he’s picked, to prevent friends laughing at him, then feigning toothache to disguise his petal-filled mouth. Lucy Tregear catches Beatrice’s humour and an underlying sensibility that matches her description of her birth – my mother wept, a star danced – making her impassioned instruction to Benedick ‘Kill Claudio,” at the climax of his declaration of love, a natural outburst of her deep feeling.

Dogberry and his men could be funnier, and some verse-speaking is adequate rather than exciting. But this is a Much Ado offering considerably more than nothing.

Leonato: David Peart
Hero: Erin Brodie
Beatrice: Lucy Tregear
Messenger/1st Watchman/Friar Francis: Ansu Kabia
Don Pedro/Sexton: Christopher Wright
Claudio: David Gyasi
Benedick: Peter Lindford
Balthasar: Simeon Truby
Don John/Dogberry: David Crellin
Antonio/Verges: Stephen MacKenna
Conrade: Leigh Symonds
Margaret: Catherine Grose
Ursula: Heather Phoenix
2nd Watchman: Robert Hardman

Director: Chris Honer
Designer: Judith Croft
Lighting: Nick Richings
Sound: Paul Gregory
Composer: Jon Nicholls
Choreographer: Francesca Jaynes
Assistant director: Marie McCarthy

2006-02-17 16:08:57