Royal Shakespeare Company
Stratford-upon-Avon
Friday 18th February 2022, evening
Directed by Roy Alexander Weise
Designed by Jemima Robinson
Costume by Melissa Simon-Hartman
Lighting Design by Azusa Ono
Music by Femi Temowo
Akiya Henry- Beatrice
Luke Wilson – Benedick
Mohammed Mansaray – Claudio
Taya Ming – Hero
Kevin N Golding – Leonardo
Mensah Bediako – Antonio
Ann Ogbomo- Pedra (Don Pedro)
Micah Balfour- Don John
Sapphire Joy- Margaret
Karen Henthorn – Dogberry / ensemble
Toyin Ayedun-Alase – Verges / ensemble
Rebecca Banatvala- Seacole / ensemble
Michael Joel Bartelle- Sexton / ensemble
Curtis Kemlo- Borachio
Miles Mitchell- Conrade
Khai Shaw – Balthasar
DK Fashola- Friar / ensemble
Aruna Jalloh – Oatcake / ensemble
Christelle Elwin – Messenger / ensemble
Adeola Yemitan – Ursula / ensemble
MUSIC
Jack Hopkins- keyboards
Fez Oguns- drums
Joseph Oyelade – bass guitar, sythn bass, alto saxophone, talking drum
Nick Lee- guitar
Kevin Waterman – percussion
Nathanial Cross- tenor and bass trombone
Tom Allan – trumpet, flugelhorn
Carolyn Lawford- alto & tenor saxphone, bass clarinet, flute
Don Pedro: Good morrow, Benedick. Why, what’s the matter?
Much Ado About Nothing, Act V, Scene 4
That you have such a February face
So full of (frost), of storm of cloudiness?
Those are lines that haven’t had a laugh in years, but on the evening of Storm Eunice, it got a good one. I didn’t recall the “frost” though. Maybe she (for Pedro had become Pedra) wisely dropped it in anticipation of the impact of “February … full of storm.” I think she said ‘full of storm and clouds’ but I may be wrong.
It was an effort to get here. It was a Red Weather Warning … “do not travel” in the morning. The news said the storm would be breaking up at 12.30 ish, which is when we decided to brave it and go. It took an hour longer from Poole to Stratford than normal … driving more slowly, a tree blocking the exit to the A34 and the Midands, a ten mile hold up on the M40 which we had to avoid by taking the more pleasant and shorter “old road” through Woodstock. We stopped for the loos just after Winchester and Karen nearly got blown over by the force of the storm winds. But we got there and it was worth it. We visited the RSC Garden Theatre last year, but this was the first time in two years we had been back inside the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. Vaccination checks on the way in, universal masking. Excellent precautions. The Rooftop Restaurant was as good as ever before the show. We were so glad to be back at the RSC.
Every review starts out on the design and costume and lighting which are all breathtaking. Costume designer Melissa Simon-Hartman has dressed Beyoncé. Jemima Robinson’s set is a co-star, as is the intricate lighting plot. It looks extraordinary, the RSC programme knows that and devotes most of the text to the costume and set. The style is Afrofuturist (no, I’d never heard of it either), which references the Black Panther Marvel film, and (to me) Futurama with a touch of Star Trek Klingon-chic and Star Wars (the second batch). Add the stage clothes of Sun Ra & His Arkestra, and Funkadelic.
On a simple level (and the programme mentions this), they decided to distinguish our four soldiers with primary colours … blue for Don Pedro / Pedra, green for Don John, red for Claudio and yellow for Benedick. This is always a good idea. In this production most actors get three, four or more costumes so you need a continuing theme (e.g. you can see the trousers or boots). This must be the most elaborate play for wigs in years which again helps mark actors as they change to gold clothes (masked ball), white (Hero’s wedding), black (Hero’s tomb). Beatrice gets the most (and most bizarre) costumes and she also gets different elaborate wigs, but they’re always white. There are some quirky additions to the futurist world. Face masks on chains are a sartorial choice for the military men (perhaps from Accessorise’s 2322 catalogue). Then there are bits of grass skirt attached to costumes. The currency is cowries, not ducats. If any play is going to get awards for costume and design this year, it’s likely to be this production.
Next reference is the music, by Femi Temowo. There’s an eight piece band. They sound superb and hopefully this will be one the RSC releases on CD in the shop – though they tend to release the mediocre ones and miss the great ones (which this is one of). I’ll buy it. References mention Sun Ra, but that’s costume, not sound. It’s rather like Earth Wind & Fire, with an occasional reggae tinge. The vocals (Balthasar) reference the main source, which to me was Lionel Richie. We were chatting to a teenager in a music shop about it the next day and her first comment was that some of it sounded like All Night Long. My opinion exactly.
Then there’s dance, which reaches its peak in the long dance at the masked ball. Then, the dance at the curtain call was short and perfunctory, which was a major surprise as the music and dance was such a high point, and the dance ending is almost standard RSC / Globe practice. It’s odd to say the final dance was too short, because the production otherwise was too long. I’ll come to that.
Does it start with a bang? Wow! Pedro(a), Claudio and Benedict descend from the top of the theatre on wires. Benedick’s harness got stuck and stagehands had to dash on and release him. It gave him the opportunity for instant grins and connection to audience rapport. If it WAS inadvertent (I had doubts), I’d add it every night.
If you want a plot synopsis on Much Ado About Nothing, there are reviews of nine other productions linked here. It’s very unusual to see an RSC production with so many actors who are new to us. I was dubious about a female Don Pedro(Pedra, or mainly ‘Princess’) – the play is all about male military comrades, with a streak of misogyny. Then you have Leonato, who believes the word of a stranger over that of his own daughter, and prefers her to be dead than to have shamed the family. In most societies, males have been concerned about female fidelity on the simple biological imperative that if they are going to spend years bringing up a child, they want to be sure of their paternity. Not all, in some remote isolated societies with a tiny gene pool, strangers’ DNA is said to be welcomed. Note that Shakespeare set the story in Messina, Sicily. He also has the jealous Leontes, terrified that his wife is unfaithful in A Winter’s Tale. Leontes is King of Sicilia. Think about the Mafia’s origins.
There surely must be a point where however hard you try, parts in a play are strongly gender-marked. Yes, I’ve seen a female Watch in the play before. Not an issue. I’ve seen a female Antonio, uncle to aunt. Still works. But Don Pedro? It does work here because Ann Ogbomo is extremely good.
Reviews chunder on about a gender fluid future. Arif Akbar in The Guardian says ‘The suggestion is that in this universe there are no gendered preferences in romance and marriage.‘ That’s simply untrue. Pedra flattens her chest to woo Hero for Claudio in the masked ball. Then on the exchange:
Pedra: Will you have me lady?
Much Ado About Nothing, Act II, Scene 1
Beatrice: No my lady, unless I may have another for working days …
Beatrice mimes a vigorous penis with a handy wine glass, which draws a laugh from having a female Don Pedro, and was a good idea (and a female leader works fine), but is hardly ‘gender fluid.’
I don’t think it’s “gender fluid”, but simply trying to increase the female to male actor ratio as general policy. The RSC must be particularly concerned with Henry VI and Richard III in the pipeline this year, perhaps the most difficult plays in which to balance gender.
Luke Wilson as Benedick needs special mention. He was understudy to Michael Balogun (who is in the advertising photo set up) until a week before it started. Balogun withdrew and Wilson is in for the season. You would never believe he was not the initial choice as Benedick. He has many funny moments too, as when a microphone on a wire descends from on high and he walks forward to sing a love song for Beatrice, only to turn out to be excruciatingly tone-deaf.
Beatrice is Akiya Henry. She does feisty well, and peppers her performance with voice changes and gestures to give an Afro-Caribbean or African American aspect. I thought both of them were great, and they’re doing the parts that are usually the famous star vehicles too. I didn’t feel they were given the space to reveal that shy intimacy though. Maybe just too much was happening.
The “overhearing scenes” where Benedick and Beatrice are set up by the others are useful comparisons to other productions, and for directors, it’s getting extremely hard to find a new twist. With Benedick, they had a servant – I assume this is Aruna Jalloh with a yellow standing-up wig (also a lead dancer) – with Benedick trying hard to stand behind him. The trouble was … and we were front centre … the three plotters masked Benedict much of the time. When he got to one side, Aruna Jalloh compensated with some clever silent reaction expressions, but the scene didn’t allow Benedick to shine.
Beatrice got a wheelbarrow to hide behind, and she got sat on. Incidentally Akiya Henry did a marvellous realistic flat-on-her-face fall and sprawl, with athletic skill.
Claudio and Hero are the hardest parts to do. I wonder how many female actors ever say, ‘Wow! I’ve been cast as Hero!’ Taya Ming makes an excellent job of it. I started out wary of Mohammed Mansaray (Claudio)’s Estuary line delivery, but I warmed to his interpretation. This was a truculent sulky Claudio – you can understand why Benedick addresses him as ‘boy’ (note that this was an insult in all-white Shakespearean England, long before Southern US slaveholders then sheriffs adopted it). It’s also a puzzled and rather thick Claudio, which definitely works. Easily manipulated. Given that we’d seen Mohammed Mansaray in The Barber Shop Chronicles, we wondered it the scene with the three soldiers in barber’s chairs being shaved was a knowing reference.
The Watch are in space age clothes with lit up name belts and blue light projecting spectacles.Dogberry and Borachio are the only white actors. I wondered if making the only “baddie” white with a black cast was deliberate. I liked Karen Henthorn’s Dogberry, but wonder still where it says in the First Folio ‘Dogberry is from Lancashire’ because they so often are. Perusing reviews, some people dislike The Watch per se. I’ve usually found them fine as long as some of the more convoluted punning lines are cut. I thought they were good here.
Overall, it’s a significant version. the trouble is, it’s too long. We went in at 7.15. Twenty minute interval. Out at 10.35. A full three hours for a comedy. Yes, they added ten to fifteen minutes with dance and song … but these are the truly memorable bits. They can’t be cut, and as above, the dance at the end was way too short. I’ve done an ELT graded version of the play. I’ve also seen it many times and I did it for A level. There are many bits which are easily cut … not whole scenes … but chunks of lines. I’d always take a large chunk out of the Leonato – Antonio discussion before Claudio and Don Pedro come on in Act V. The Friar can lose half the lines. They’re both sections of monologue which slow the pace just as the drama is accelerating. I think the actors are fully aware that they are ploughing stolidly through a flat spot in the script. Let’s blame the original author. It really needs to lose ten to fifteen minutes. I’d also say that there is quite wide variation on the line delivery. Some (Beatrice, Benedick, Pedra especially) are better than others.
To be harsh, I’d say the balance between costume and detailed line direction was skewed just too far onto the costumes. It’s a big, big production in cast size, effects, costume, set. To a degree, it overwhelms the play – see my review of The Globe in 2014 with a very small “touring cast” (a third the number of actors!) doubling and trebling up in modern dress with no effects. It was one of the best. The play can work in many different ways. As in 2016 (set post Great War), the RSC is at the absolute most elaborate end of the possibilities.
Overall? I was thinking five star costume and design, but it lacked the “Ahh!” factor … intimacy? Poignancy? Plus a couple or three actors weren’t great on delivery. So I was tending to three stars. Then we spoke with a teenager who’d seen it who was totally thrilled. Knocked out. Caught by the Shakespeare bug because they loved it. So …
****
WHAT THE CRITICS SAID
4 star
Domenic Cavendish, Telegraph ****
Dave Fargnoli, The Stage ****
3 star
Arif Akbar, Guardian ***
Michael Davies, What’s On Stage, ***
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING on this blog
- 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)
- Much Ado About Nothing – RSC 2016 revival
- 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
- Much Ado About Nothing – FILM – Joss Whedon, 2013
KEVIN N GOLDING
The Provoked Wife, RSC 2019
Hamlet, RSC 2016
King Lear, RSC 2016
Venice Preserved, RSC 2019
MOHAMMED MANSARY
The Barber Shop Chronicles, The Roundhouse 2019
MICAH BALFOUR
The Barber Shop Chronicles, The Roundhouse 2019
TOYIN AYEDUN-ALASE
The Comedy of Errors, RSC Garden Theatre 2021
MILES MITCHELL
Dido Queen of Carthage, RSC 2017
Salome, RSC 2017
SAPPHIRE JOY
Imogen (Cymbeline Renamed), Globe 2016
Peter Viney's Blog 
Leave a Reply