Much Ado About Nothing: A Fresh Revival of Shakespeare's Classic

Much Ado About Nothing is one of Shakespeare’s most popular plays and was written around 1598/9. No surprise because the central love affair, or “merry war,” between the sparring Benedick and Beatrice, frenemies who will not admit their attraction to each other, is a delight. Although their defensiveness clearly springs from the fact they both feel hurt by the other. It makes their eventual melting feel genuinely earned.  It is a hard play not to like if you have half a heart. G.B. Shaw didn’t. “A hopeless mess,” he opined. But old George is in the minority.

Jamie Lloyd’s revival at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane stars Tom Hiddleston and Hayley Atwell. Neither are Shakespeare novices. Hiddleston and Atwell both have form with Shakespeare: Atwell played Isabella in Measure for Measure at the Donmar opposite Jack Lowden in 2018, and Hiddleston was a celebrated Coriolanus at the same address back in 2013. Atwell has worked extensively with Lloyd, most notably in Alexi Kaye Campbell’s The Pride and The Faith Machine at the Royal Court. Hiddleston was in his revival of Harold Pinter’s Betrayal in 2019 in both the West End and on Broadway. So it’s a tried and tested working relationship.

Hayley Atwell and Tom Hiddleston in rehearsals for Much Ado About Nothing, Photo by Marc Brenner.

But they do have big shoes to fill. Recent famous pairings include John Heffernan and Katherine Parkinson at the NT in 2022 and an autumnal B&B with James Earl Jones and Vanessa Redgrave at the Old Vic in 2013. Nick Hytner had a slightly older couple too, with Simon Russell Beale and Zoe Wanamaker at the NT in 2007. David Tennant and Catherine Tate played opposite each other in the West End in 2011. Judi Dench played Beatrice to Donald Sinden’s Benedick for the RSC in 1976 and then Kenneth Branagh and Samantha Bond at the Phoenix in 1988. Maggie Smith and her then-husband Robert Stephens were notable Beatrice and Benedick in 1965. Henry Irving and Ellen Terry had a big hit with the play at the Lyceum in 1882.

The title of Much Ado includes more than one pun. 'Nothing' would also have been pronounced 'no thing' or 'noting.'. Nothing was slang for the vagina, and something was slang for the penis. Noting was also a term used to describe eavesdropping, a crucial part of the play’s plotting, and also dazzling sexual repartee in which Benedick and Beatrice delight. But some scholars reckon that the play’s original title might have been Love’s Labours Won. Shakespeare’s Love’s Labours Lost was written prior to Much Ado, probably around 1595/6.

Tom Hiddleston in rehearsals for Much Ado About Nothing, Photo by Marc Brenner.

Unlike some of Shakespeare’s other comedies, in particular Twelfth Night and The Comedy of Errors, there are no actual twins, but the twin motif appears throughout in the two entwined plots, the presence of two pairs of lovers—Benedick and Beatrice and Claudio and Hero—two villains, two Spanish lords, and two maidservants.

In the play Benedick has 161 lines and Beatrice 111. Compare that with Hamlet, who has over 1,000 lines. But the pleasure of a really great revival of this play is that the audience feels they know these two characters better than they know themselves. As Nick Hytner says, "the actors playing Beatrice and Benedick have to create the whole history for themselves, as the playwright says almost nothing about the palpable pain that they cause each other by being in each other’s presence. This isn’t faulty playwriting: it’s another of Shakespeare’s sure-footed acts of trust in his actors to complete the job for him.”

Hayley Atwell in rehearsals for Much Ado About Nothing, Photo by Marc Brenner.

The play is a comedy, but it has a dark heart in the subplot involving lovers Hero and Claudio. The tragedy that befalls Hero leads to two of the most famous and shocking words spoken in Shakespeare. In a good production they make the auditorium fall silent and the audience hold their breath.

It is a play about war, many different kinds of war. At its centre is a war between the sexes, but the drama takes place against the background of a real war in which there are winners and losers.

There is a movie version made in 1993 and starring then real-life couple Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson, which is definitely worth a look. It has a genuinely sun-drenched quality. After all, Much Ado is set in Sicily. There is a 2023 Australian rom-com, Anyone But You, that was inspired by Much Ado.

Cover image from Much Ado About Nothing, playing at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane from Mon 10 Feb to Sat 5 Apr.