By William Shakespeare
Directed by Sean Holmes
Designer- Grace Smart
Composer- Grant Olding
Shakespeare’s Globe, London
Thursday 23 May 14.00
CAST
Amalia Vitale- Beatrice
John Lightbody- Leonato
Colm Gormley- Antonio / Verges
Emma Ernest – Margaret
Lydia Fleming – Hero
Jonnie Broadbent- Dogberry / Messenger
Ekow Quartey – Benedick
Adam Wadsworth- Claudio
Ryan Donaldson – Don Pedro
Robert Mountford – Don John
Dhamash Patel- Conrade / Friar Francis
Calum Callaghan – Borachio
Peter McGovern -Ensemble / cover
Lucy Reynolds – Ensemble / cover
MUSIC
Alise Silina – accordion
Polly Bolton – mandolin
Charlie Laffer – MD, guitar, mandolin
Saleem Raman – percussion
Israel Ola Akindipe – woodwind
Two Much Ado in a fortnight. It goes like that. It’s a play that usually has a concept – a luxury hotel (I’ve seen that twice, 1930s and contemporary), a hospital in a country house at Christmas 1918, a Hollywood 1940s film set (the Watermill last week), a suburban American home (the Josh Whedon film). They’ve come up with a new one here. How about setting it in the 1590s, say in Sicily (open with a song in Italian) then have the actors in Elizabethan / Jacobean style in a reproduction of the stage Shakespeare used? Yes. A great idea.
This is unusual for The Globe- no gender switching in the speaking roles. No disabled actors. No deaf actors signing. Everyone able to project and articulate. It’s running alongside Richard III, where we have the travesty of Globe boss Michelle Terry playing the lead. It’s why (in spite of Olivier and Rylance) you should have a director in charge, not an actor grabbing all the plum parts for herself. It’s almost if the Globe is a dual monarchy, with Assistant Artistic Director, Sean Holmes, doing the sensible productions like this.
The set has a Sicilian theme (Shakespeare placed it in Messina)… stylized orange trees against the back, boxes of oranges everywhere, bright blue platforms around the pillars … the last a very useful device indeed as it brings balcony scenes right up front rather than lost in the darkness of the upper inner stage.
There’s a very good essay on the costumes in the programme. They are fabulous. The best I’ve seen at The Globe in years. The essay says they decided on an orange / blue palette then apologises that bright orange dye didn’t exist in the 1590s (nor did Benedick’s bright turquoise). It also says they’re not a specific period. OK, but generally they work as a hyper-real ‘between 1580 and 1620’ for me. The soldiers arrive in early Jacobean armour (though shinier).
The palette works in placing Beatrice and Benedick in blue, Leonato and Antonio in yellow / green and Don Pedro / Claudio in vermilion / orange, Conrade and Borachio in orange and mustard. Then Don John is alone, in maroon, purple and silver. Isolated, paired with no one. This sort of colour coding is a subliminal plot aid. The costumes extend to the musicians. This is what the many foreign visitors come to see at The Globe.
It’s perfect Globe weather., Dry, but not too sunny so glare is avoided and people aren’t collapsing with heat stroke. There are at least four large school parties. I find that a bonus … as I walked past one group, a lad was saying ‘Wow! Look! They got a drum kit!’ The schools filled the extreme side sections (cheaper) with a very large party right in the middle of the pit (with many of the girls in headscarfs).
The lead roles of Beatrice and Benedick have so often been vehicles for well-known, somewhat older actors, often with TV starring roles. This and the Watermill last week have avoided this, and gone for younger and less famous. It worked in both.
Both Ekow Quartey and Amalia Vitale excel. He is is huge. She is tiny. Both play for comedy, and both play the crowd. Amalia Vitale is one of the best Beatrices I have seen, and I’ve seen a few. Her gestures and movements are very funny, and later on when she rails against the male world, she played straight to the schoolgirls and drew a LOT of applause. She did her overhearing scene pushing through people in the pit, then decided not to use the stairs, but climb onto the stage, but it was too high, and she enlisted audience member to hoists her on.
Ekow Quartey also had the crowd appeal that comes through charisma. I loved him getting the audience at the front to put their hands on his and chant the speech (of promises) line by line after him. He can do a hip walk across the stage and get the laughs without saying a word, yet when he has to go serious (Kill Claudio!) he plays straight and imposing. Every Much Ado stands or falls on Beatrice and Benedick, and these are 5 star portrayals.
John Lightbody as Leonato also differs from the often rather dull template. This is an irascible Leonato, one who imbibes too freely too. In the “Benedick overhearing’ scene he starts by singing ‘Hey Nonny Nonny’ and does the full audience singalong participation. He tops it by milking the very considerable applause in ‘star singer’ style hands on heart, thanks gestures. Hilarious.
Ekow Quartey is on the higher balcony, eating an orange during the song, and he peels it and stuffs the peel in his ears to keep the noise out. I did note that at the end of the scene he is caught in the open, so pretends to be part of the orange tree background holding oranges. Two weeks ago, at the Watermill, they did exactly the same with apples in the Beatrice overhearing scene. Whose idea? I don’t know. Still, few will note it as the critics can’t make the journey to Newbury, though they can all make The Globe. This Leonato is aided by having his brother Antonio (Colm Gormley), who recently has either been cut for economy, or become a sister. They do it as intended here.
Dogberry is Jonnie Broadbent (listed as Jonathan in most plays we’ve seen). He is a natural Shakespeare comedy role … he was in the garden theatre RSC Comedy of Errors in 2021 where his ability to improvise and bring in the audience was the centre of the show. This is a different Dogberry, in that it’s probably what the role originally was … remember Dogberry is proud of his two gowns and is pompous rather than the rural oaf he often becomes. Director Sean Holmes and Jonnie Broadbent go back for us to Filter’s Midsummer Night’s Dream in 2011.
Verges is Colm Gormley doubling as a drunken one, and we have the ensemble doing the rest of the Watch. Look out for Dogberry’s sword. No plot spoilers but it got huge laughs then applause. He also does The Messenger to start the play with the news of the battle.
Hero and Claudio are the hard parts (as I said in the Watermill review) in that they need to play straight among the chaos. Adam Wadsworth manages to draw laughter as Claudio too, especially exiting with ‘Its not fair!’ when he thinks Don Pedro has wooed Hero.
Lydia Fleming;s Hero is also one to come out on the platform extending from the stage to give a speech. They’re both very good indeed. She is assisted by a strong Margaret (Emma Ernest). Hero is such a “wet” part but here she transforms it and brings out a stronger character.
Here come the Dons …
Ryan Donaldson’s Irish accented Don Pedro is imposing and his height assists while Robert Mountford’s Don John is a villain’s villain … with a wink and a nod to the audience. Don Joihn is the scheming bastard brother of Don Pedro. Combining villainy with humour as he does is an art. Incidentally, drums are used to send characters jerking at opportune moments.
Then Conrade and Borachio are a double act as Don John’s followers. You need a strong Conrade and Borachio to make the scene with Dogberry work, and here it does. Conrade is a yob. Borachio sees himself as a gentleman. watch out for the handcuffs routine if you go to see it.
The masked ball is the height of the elaboration of the costume design … and the dances are longer than normal. A visual thrill, and the online photos don’t even have Benedick’s duck costume, the best of the lot.
It was clearly five star by the interval. I’m going to give it four though. Five stars for costume and the lead roles though.
I don’t know why, well maybe I do, it is intrinsic to the play, but the second half (Acts IV and V) dropped the mood just a tad. It is the switch to serious, with the Watch interspersed and taking the humour. It felt flatter, as it can do. Much of that was beyond their control. Part one had seen a nearly full Pit with so many school kids. That gives atmosphere. But the ones in the pit all left in the interval. Why? Buses to catch? These were the head-scarfed ones … teachers thought it unsuitable? I’ll never know. Suddenly the pit looked much emptier. That impacted on the mood. It looked ‘Where has everyone gone?’
Part of it was the usual Globe problem in that set changes are not possible. Often The Watch become a radical shift in recent years … Keystone Cops, or 1940s Home Guard, or rural policemen on bicycles, all with a new set. That wasn’t a possibility. Then it’s become pretty standard to have an elaborate wedding chapel set, but you can’t do that here, and the Friar did it from the stage right platform as if from a pulpit. There were new ideas … Hero’s coffin (woodland burial wicker) was wheeled into the Pit for Claudio to lay his flowers. The Pit was used extensively for entrances and exits, which meant a lot of rapid trotting around for the cast.
The final dance is a Globe institution. Amalia Vitale and Lydia Fleming hold the centre with aplomb.
All in all, a wonderfully entertaining version, with every cast member clear, loud, and excellent.
****
WHAT THE CRITICS SAID
5 Star
Alun Hood, What’s On Stage *****
Alice Kennedy, The Reviews Hub *****
4 star
Clive Davis, The Times ****
Nick Curtis, Evening Standard ****
Tom Wicker, Time Out ****
3 star
Arifa Akbar, The Guardian ***
Kirsten Grant, The Telegraph ***
Holly O’Mahoney, The Stage ***
LINKS ON THIS BLOG
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING
- Much Ado About Nothing- Wyndhams, 2011 David Tennant, Catherine Tate
- Much Ado About Nothing – Old Vic 2013 James Earl Jones, Vanessa Redgrave
- Much Ado About Nothing – Globe 2014
- Much Ado About Nothing – RSC 2014 (aka Love’s Labour’s Won), Edward Bennett
- Much Ado About Nothing – RSC 2016 revival, + Lisa Dillon
- Much Ado About Nothing – Globe 2017
- Much Ado About Nothing – Rose, Kingston 2018, Mel Giedroyc
- Much Ado About Nothing, Northern Broadsides, on tour, Salisbury 2019
- Much Ado About Nothing, RSC 2022
- Much Ado About Nothing, National Theatre 2022, Katherine Parkinson
- Much Ado About Nothing, Watermill, 2024
- Much Ado About Nothing – FILM – Joss Whedon, 2013
SEAN HOLMES (Director)
The Comedy of Errors, Globe 2023
The Winter’s Tale – Wanamaker & Globe 2023
Twelfth Night, Globe 2021 & broadcast
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Globe 2019
A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Filter 2011
JONATHAN BROADBENT
The Comedy of Errors, RSC Garden Theatre 2021
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Filter, 2011
My Night With Reg by Kevin Elyot, Apollo, London 2015
Love for Love by Congreve, RSC 2015
Queen Anne by Helen Edmundson, RSC 2015
Living Together by Alan Ayckbourn, Chichester, 2017
Round and Round The Garden by Alan Ayckbourn, Chichester 2017
Table Manners by Alan Ayckbourn, Chichester 2017
EKOW QUARTEY
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Globe 2019
As You Like It, National 2015
Richard II, Globe 2015
Spring Awakening, by Wedekind, Nuffield Southampton 2014
COLM GORMLEY
The Winter’s Tale – Wanamaker & Globe 2023
The Winter’s Tale, RSC 2021
The Taming of The Shrew, Globe 2016
The Country Girls, Chichester Minerva Theatre 2017
ROBERT MOUNTFORD
Macbeth, Tara Arts, Poole 2015 (Macbeth)
JOHN LIGHTBODY
The Winter’s Tale – Wanamaker & Globe 2023
RYAN DONALDSON
The Winter’s Tale, Cheek By Jowel, Bath 2017
CALUM CALLAGHAN
Macbeth, Globe 2023
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