Review of Much Ado About Nothing, Open Air Theatre
Open Air Theatre season opens with Shakespeare's wittiest lovers, Beatrice and Benedick - so why are the boring subplot pair more interesting?
2 June 2009
Rating: 3/5
Taking one of Shakespeare's most enjoyable classics, director Timothy Sheader has achieved the impossible: turning ghastly milksop Claudio into a plausible hero, and making one of the Bard's greatest, most fanciable wits, Benedick, into a moronic jester.
As noblemen returned from war to a hotbed of romance and gossip, Claudio (a superb Ben Mansfield) immediately falls for the lovely Hero (Anneika Rose on sprited form), while her witty cousin Beatrice (Samantha Spiro) resumes her on-off sparring with Benedick (Sean Campion).
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Beatrice and Benedick have some of Shakespeare's greatest dialogue, mostly to make up for the godawful Claudio/Hero storyline, where poor Hero is falsely accused of chucking her virginity on the eve of her wedding, causing all manner of ado over her nothing. The miracle is, this time it's feasible.
Far from holding Hero up as the epitome of virtue as so many other Claudios have, Mansfield treats her with the good-humoured humility of a university rugby player.
Misogynistic rage at her supposed infidelity is softened into lantern-jawed sulks at having been cheated on. When they're reunited, we don't think Hero's a twit for getting involved with him again, we thank the heavens the plot's been foiled.
But Beatrice and Benedick' s wonderfully bitchy word fights turn into monologues for Spiro's excellent Beatrice, while Sean Campion's Benedick is more children's entertainer than wit, throwing lines in the air like juggling balls with most falling flat on the floor.
To 27 June, Much Ado About Nothing, Regent's Park Open Air Theatre, Open Air Inner Circle, Regent's Park, NW1 4NU, 020 7486 7905
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