Much Ado About Nothing – Jamie Lloyd, 2025

By William Shakespeare
Directed by Jamie Lloyd
Set & Costume Soutra Gilmour
Sound Design / Composers Ben & Max Ringham

Jamie Lloyd Company
at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London
Wednesday 26th February 2025, 19.30

CAST
Tom Hiddleston – Benedick
Hayley Atwell- Beatrice
Mara Huf- Hero
Mika Onyx Johnson – Borachio
Gerald Kyd – Don Pedro
Forbes Masson – Leonato
Phillip Olagoke – Friar Francis
Mason Alexander Park – Margaret
James Phoon – Claudio
Tim Steed – Don John

Andrew Lloyd-Webber, who bought the Theatre Royal, announces in the programme his pride that it returns to Shakespeare after decades of big musicals. It started with Jamie Lloyd Company and The Tempest last year with Sigourney Weaver and many of this cast. That was not well reviewed and we gave it a miss. It’s a season for stars of the screen on London stages … David Tennant as Macbeth, Jonathan Bailey as Richard II and here Tom Hiddleston and Hayley Atwell as Beatrice and Benedick.

The first reaction here is, what? No Dogberry? The original lines creak, but we’ve seen some marvellous added improvisation Dogberry performances. And so no Watch? Isn’t that central to the plot? How are they going to reveal what Don John and Borachio did? The entire soldiers returning from the wars thread has gone too.

The beats music and lasers are very loud before the show starts, I guess it adds anticipation, but I find mindless computer rhythm tracks annoying. I’m the live drummer generation. I was also trying to get over the £10 programme, double what we expect, and with a plain cover and full colour only on adverts. (The next day, the superior programme at The Bridge Theatre was £5).

*Mason Alexander Park as Margaret, bookends the show with songs*

It starts with Margaret (Hero’s servant) singing Tell It To My Heart by Taylor Dane, and the ballad singing runs through to the end with When Love Takes Over (David Guetta and Kelly Rowland). Mason Alexander Park as a trans Margaret is a powerful singer, but the songs are very Saturday night singing competition style to me. To quote the Taylor Dane song, they’re ‘Emotion overload.’ Loved the singing but not the songs. I was hard put trying to work out whether Park was deliberately imitating the OTT mannered style of Britain’s Got Talent singers plus the originals (and doing it brilliantly) or whether that was Park’s chosen style. I think (hope) the former.

Mostly the musical items during the play are 90s Ibiza classics (or so I’m told). This references Beatrice and Benedick’s age now- their hearts would be in the 90s. As soon as the full cast dancing starts, it transcends the rave music. Having just watched Taylor Dane’s video, this cast is far better choreographed and executed! I’ll quote Andrzej Lukowski’s Time Out review:

Indeed, in a hipster way it’s a very middle aged show generally, with a nostalgic ‘90s dance soundtrack, allusions to the glory days of Ibiza club culture, karaoke, dad jokes, dad dancing, etcetera. In a way, Hiddleston’s performance is daring simply for how aggressively uncool it is, how much he owns being a middle-aged dad here. Might this be off-putting to younger audiences? I don’t know! But speaking as somebody whose birthday falls more or less slap bang in between Atwell and Hiddleston’s, I absolutely felt this production in my bones – an immaculate and hilarious synthesis of naffness and cool.
Andrzej Lukowski Time Out 20 February 2025

Mostly the cast are on all stage throughout, seated on chairs. The first scene is four of them, Leonato, Hero, Beatrice, Margaret, sitting in chairs facing front. In general, longer speeches are declaimed straight out to the audience, not to other actors. The play is thus very dance and beats 2025, yet in acting style, old fashioned. That suits a Star vehicle, which very much it is. We’ve seen audiences swoon over David Tennant and Benedict Cumberbatch.

Tom Hiddleston is a league above either. The line It is certain that I am loved of all ladies had the female majority in the audience whoop. The loudest mid speech ‘whoop!’ I’ve ever heard in a Shakespeare play. It happened again unbuttoning a shirt, it was ecstatic when he revealed his six pack. He knew it, he milked it, and did it with aplomb and humour. Hayley Atwell is also a major film star. Both used gestures, winks, asides directly to the audience. Breaking the fourth wall was the theme. She has a powerful personality and is as feisty a Beatrice as anyone could want.

The Marvel connection for both stars is referenced at one point with full sized cutouts of their Marvel characters. That’s why the theatre is packed and has a much younger age profile. I used to collect Marvel comics in the late 60s and had a splendid collection which we sold in 1975 to buy curtains for our first flat. Two apple boxes full of them. £85. Several in those boxes sell for high three figures now. My son worked for Marvel in LA. I haven’t seen the Atwell and Hiddleston Marvel films though.

It’s think pink. Pink confetti pours down, or drifts down throughout, dependent on the intensity of the scene. It’s deep enough to conceal Benedict in the overhearing scene, which features one of the most surprising uses of a stage trap I have seen. The overhearing scene has a huge inflatable heart too.

The costumes blaze with colour:

James Phoon – Claudio, Gerald Kyd – Don Pedro, Mara Huff- Hero, Forbes Masson – Leonato

Villains. Tim Steed as Don John, Mika Onyx Johnson as Borachio

They use oversized heads for the masqued ball. They are carefully chosen. Benedick has the male image of a panting hopeful dog, Beatrice has the feminine feline cat. Then Hero, has a baby chick head (chick? Geddit?) Then when Borachio seduces Margaret who is pretending to be Hero, Margaret simply has the same Chick head on. It’s a full legs spread bonk too.

*The Wedding: L to R Leonato, Hero, Friar Francis, Claudio, Don John*

They transition well to the serious second half, and I guess not having Dogberry and his blokes helps that. There tends to be an uncomfortable see saw between laughter and serious stuff. Not here. We have a very strong Claudio and Hero. It is a major change to have an assertive Hero, who is not wet at all. When she is supposed to be acting dead, she stays below the table in bride’s (mini) dress listening.

They get over the absence of the Watch, Dogberry and the Justice of the Peace simply. Margaret decides to own up to it, and Borachio admits it and expands. They took odd words from Dogberry without the playing around.

We liked Don John’s exit. when it’s announced that he’s fled, he gets up from his seat, shrugs and sidles off.

Star turns indeed, but they fit so well together. They’re the right age for seasoned bachelors and spinsters, and are both obviously attractive strong personalities.

It’s rare to get such an agreement on 5 stars in reviews. It’s a glorious, joyous evening and a unique approach to a play I know so well. I’m a great lover of the play anyway,. Karen never has been and declares it the best version she’s seen. A reduced cast indeed, but it works a dream.

5 stars *****

MUSIC CREDITS
This is a theatre owned by Andrew Lloyd-Webber, a composer. That makes it all the stranger that the music is not credited. With the three full-on ballads this is appalling. It’s bad enough with the songs used for dances. One reason is said to be surprise, but with the noise and lights, and standing up to let people into the row, who is going to be able to read the programme in advance? Yet even the understudies and assistant lighting director get lists of past credits, then venue maintenance, physio and security get credits.

But not the people who composed the songs which must take up eight minutes of running time just for the ballads. Say I heard a song and wanted to buy it? (I definitely didn’t!)

FOOD
We bought the offered package with three course dinner in the 2nd floor rooms where they used to offer afternoon teas. First rate service, and food, plus the ambience with Pre-Raphaelite paintings. It immediately challenges the Swan at The Globe, the Minerva restaurant at Chichester and the Rooftop at the RSC for best theatre dining. It’s an added attraction. We will be back.

WHAT THE PAPERS SAID

5 star
Arifa Akbar, The Guardian *****
Domenic Cavendish, Telegraph *****
Nick Curtis, Evening Standard *****
Sarah Crompton, What’s On Stage *****
Sarah Hemming, Financial Times *****
Stefan Kyriazis, Daily Express *****
Andrzej Lukowski, Time Out *****
Daz Gale, All That Dazzles *****
Marianka Swain, London Theatre *****

4 star
Clive Davis, The Times ****
Susannah Clapp, The Observer ****
Alice Saville, Independent ****
Dave Fargnoli, The Stage ****
Fiona Mountford, The i Paper, ****

3 star
Dominic Maxwell, Sunday Times ***

LINKS ON THIS BLOG

JAMIE LLOYD
Sunset Boulevard, Savoy, London 2023
The Ruling Class, Trafalgar Studios
Richard III, Trafalgar Studios
The Hot House, Trafalgar Studios
Macbeth, Trafalgar Studios
The Homecoming, Trafalgar Studios
The Duchess of Malfi, Old Vic
The School for Scandal, Theatre Royal, Bath

TOM HIDDLESTON
The Play What I Wrote, Chichester 2022 (celebrity guest)
High Rise (film)
Coriolanus, Donmar live 2014 (Coriolanus)
The Deep Blue Sea by Rattigan (film) (Freddie)

HAYLEY ATWELL
Testament of Youth (film)

FORBES MASSON
The Taxidermist’s Daughter, Chichester 2022
Bartholomew Fair, Ben Jonson, Wanamaker Playhouse 2019
The Merry Wives of Windsor, Globe 2019
Boudica, Globe 2017
Travesties, Menier, 2016
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Bath 2016
The Ruling Class, Trafalgar Studio, 2015
Richard III, Trafalgar Studio, 2014

GERALD KYD
The Deep Blue Sea, Chichester 2019 (Sir William Collyer)
Richard III, Trafalgar Studios

TIM STEED
Jack Absolute Flies Again, National Theatre, 2022
Ralegh: The Treason Trial, Winchester Great Hall, 2018
The Merchant of Venice, Almeida, 2012

Peter Viney's Blog

ELT, theatre, music reviews