MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING To 27 June.
London.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING
by William Shakespeare.
Open Air Theatre Regent’s Park To 27 June 2009.
Mon-Sat 8pm Mat Mon, Thu, Say 2.30pm.
Captioned 16 June.
Runs 2ht 40min One interval.
TICKETS: 0844 826 4242.
www.openairtheatre
Review: Timothy Ramsden 1 June.
Shakespeare for picnickers and tourists.
I’ve nothing against tourists and not much against picnics, so this isn’t a sneer. Indeed, picnics really come to mind because every Open-Air audience seems to have its audience contingents lugging cool-boxes or hampers along their row or pouring glasses of wine some way in to the first act of shows. Given the right weather, this is a near-magical place for the theatre of contentment.
Designer Philip Witcomb’s orange trees provide a play of colour through which a wide path assertively winds its way. As darkness falls, the colour swathes of Simon Mills’ lighting, catching the surrounding trees, paint a beautiful picture.
You can feel you’ve had you money’s worth and go home happy. Artistic Director Timothy Sheader’s production tells the story of Much Ado and introduces its characters clearly. Ideal particularly for people new to the play.
Doubtless you’ve heard the ‘but’ coming. Instead, here’s an ‘although’. Although the happy opening, with Samantha Spiro’s Beatrice playing on a swing with women attendants – it’s intriguing to see the female presence as the first view of this world - and although this almost childlike playfulness resonates with the depth Spiro gives to recollections of Benedick’s previous emotional betrayals, once Sean Campion’s arm-swinging, multi-smiling Benedick arrives the production settles down to gorgeously apparelled externality.
A rule for comedy: the more laughing there is on stage, the less there’ll be in the audience. There’s a lot of laughing onstage here, less in the audience. Some arrives in the play’s several eavesdropping scenes as Benedick, absorbed in his friends’ account of Beatrice’s love for him, comes out of hiding and joins them for a moment, or Beatirce overhearing the counter-version of Benedick’s love for her falls, snapping a branch off her concealing tree.
Anthony O’Donnell’s squat Dogberry, standing on a wood crate to gain authority over a taller world, with his semi-literate self-assertion, is a source of amusement. Too often though, the delightful externals of acting and production leave us looking on glassily, appreciating a cultural experience and the atmosphere of the event, yet somehow dissatisfied as the play proceeds too smoothly before us.
Singer: Tim Howar.
Beatrice: Samantha Spiro.
Hero: Annelka Rose.
Margaret: Annalisa Rossi.
Rose: Kate Tydman.
Messenger/Hugh Oatcake: Eke Chukwu.
Ursula: Sarah Ingram.
Leonato: Nigel Cooke.
Don Pedro: Silas Carson.
Benedick: Sean Campion.
Claudio: Ben Mansfield.
Don John: Tim Steed.
Conrade: Chris Jared.
Borachio: Peter Bramhill.
Dogberry: Anthony O’Donnell.
Verges: Simon Gregor.
1st Watchman/Sexton: Harry Myers.
George Seacoal: Mark McGee.
Friar Francis: David Whitworth.
Director: Timothy Sheader.
Designer: Philip Witcomb.
Lighting: Simon Mills.
Sound: Fergus O’Hare.
Composer: David Shrubsole.
Choreographer: Ann Yee.
Costume: Deirdre Clancy.
Voice coach/Text consultant: Barbara Houseman.
Language/verse consultant: Giles Taylor.
Assistant director: Kate Sagovsky.
Assistant choreographer: David Grewcock.
2009-06-04 12:56:28