Much Ado About Nothing @ Surgeon's Hall

Much Ado Nothing has been considered the first “Romcom,” but is not just trite. It carries those sparks of structural ingenuity that Shakepeare is rightly famed for, and like all Shakespeare it is not easy to pull off - the actors must feel at home in the Jacobean dialect - no mean feat for such a young company as N6 Productions to undertake.

There are successes in this respect, Natasha Holmes who plays the principal role of sharp-tongued Beatrice is particularly immersed and delivers her pointed jokes with style, Lara Pearson makes much of her small role as Mistress Margaret, Ben Weil has the air of pomposity required to carry off Benedick, India Crawford makes a particularly sweet Hero, and Henry Zaffman gives an enjoyable performance as the buffoonish watchman.

On the other hand, throughout the play there are moments when the emotionality of some lines is miscommunicated, and in a particularly painful botch the sense of how a trick is played by the villains Don John and Borachio upon the merry couple Hero and Claudio is not clearly communicated in this production at all.  

Still, there are several key climatic moments which are excellently captured, particularly the wedding scene which turns to disaster and the direction is generally executed with maturity and competence.

There are some quirky conceptual decisions, the use of combat trousers helped identify certain characters as soldiers, but the purpose of using early rock n’ roll music for scene changes is unclear.