Shakespeare’s Globe is on a roll at the moment. From the bubble-popping, party atmosphere of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, to the delightfully furious Mother Courage and Her Children, the theatre is in the midst of a sizzling summer season, and it is a winning run that continues with this classy comedy about love, deceit and verbal sparring.
Much Ado About Nothing is probably one of Shakespeare’s best comedies. Tightly structured, the back and forth between sparring, will-they won’t they, lovers Benedick (Ken Nwosu) and Beatrice (Pippa Nixon) is central focus of the Sicilian set play, where the pair are caught up in schemes and plots aiming to bring them together, while the menacing Don John (Joseph Potter) aims his poison at engaged couple Claudio (Joshua John) and the innocent Hero (a superb Assa Kanouté).
It has many of the great hallmarks of Shakespeare’s comedic work. A fabricated death, scheming villains and a permanent exchange of wit that, under Chelsea Walker’s direction here, comes alive with great gusto. The sharp putdowns exchanged by Benedick and Beatrice are fast and fierce, earning each laugh, while Walker’s vision for the play, its comedic moments and its more mournful scenes, is inspired and inventive.
As Benedick, Nwosu works hard to craft a character who is both prideful and fantastically naive. Swept up within Don Pedro’s (Adam Long) schemes to matchmake Benedick and Beatrice, Nwosu’s ability to draw laughs out of very little thrives. In one of the highlights of the production, Nwosu scales the theatre, hiding behind standing patrons, disguising himself behind stairs and even leaping into a flooded flower cart, presumably a mercy in the summer heat, in a way that does not defile the arrogance and bravado of the character, but instead captures the rawness of the lovestruck emotion he feels. Nwosu’s energy is matched by Nixon’s brilliantly defiant Beatrice, whose acid-tongued putdowns are wonderfully delivered, but moreover it is in the physicality of the comedy that Nixon shines, standing soaked under a hanging basket as she too succumbs to the plotting of others. Nixon stomps, stamps and struts as Beatrice, yet underneath this also finds room to explore her compassionate and protective nature, combining with Nwosu to form an absorbing partnership that instantly clicks.
Aside from Benedick and Beatrice’s bickering, the comedy also hinges upon the tumultuous pairing of Claudio (John) and Hero (Kanouté). While in some productions this drifts in focus, in Walker’s staging the dramatic twists and turns of this impending marriage, where Claudio’s suspicions of Hero’s supposed infidelity drive the seriousness of the play forward. Largely easily swayed, John’s Claudio is remorseful, having been cruelly dismissive of Hero, with an act of violence between the pair both shocking and something not too unfamiliar from a soap opera, yet this culminates in one of this version’s most affecting scenes, where, led by Claudio, the ensemble mourn the seemingly dead Hero, with the former sunk into her dug grave, absorbed by grief and vulnerability.
Yet it is Kanouté’s terrific and heartbreaking portrayal of Hero which threatens to steal the show. Covered in destroyed wedding cake, Kanouté captures with sincerity the tormented devastation of Hero, with Walker’s direction refreshingly lingering on her suffering rather than the male bravado that causes it.
Indeed, although spear-headed by four exceptional leads, it is also a comedy driven forward by its strong ensemble. Long’s Don Pedro and Jonathan McGuinness’s Leonato ooze class, aided by their pastel coloured suits, which aid Sami Fendall’s design of throwing us into the lavish, garden party setting of the upper classes. Moreover, Richard Katz’s Dogberry, an outlandish guard who seeks to uncover the truth of Don John’s plot, steals the scenes he is in with great comedic zest.
As is typical of a Shakespearean comedy, all’s well that ends well, yet this version goes beyond the bickering and bluster and finds something much richer for it.
