Much Ado About Nothing (Theatre)

Synopsis:
The electric wordplay in Rachel Kavanaugh’s post-war Much Ado About Nothing takes place between an older and sassier Beatrice and Benedick than usual. He is a Billy Connolly soundalike, with a rogueish air that suggests he took whisky with his mother’s milk, while his unlikely lover is a gleaming-eyed vamp with a cigarette-smoked voice, and more than a hint of Marlene Dietrich. In this enjoyable production, Kavanaugh continues her love affair with the hedonism of the early 20th century aristocracy. Last year’s Twelfth Night was set against the appropriately androgynous decade of the Twenties, and now Much Ado About Nothing immerses the audience in the escapist pleasures of the post-war generation, staying true to the after-the-fight frivolity of Shakespeare’s original.

Critics’ Reviews: (#1)

I have already raved about Alan Strachan’s effervescent production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Now comes Rachel Kavanaugh’s “Much Ado About Nothing,” which is, if anything, even better.

She has set the action, wittily and persuasively, in the grounds of an English country house during the Second World War. Don Pedro, Claudio and Benedick have recently returned from a successful campaign (North Africa?) for a spot of rest and recreation at Leonato’s handsome spread, complete with orangery (the windows taped to prevent bomb shattering) and summer pavilion.

The entertainments come courtesy of ENSA, the masked ball becomes a boozy fancy-dress party, and the production brilliantly captures the manic, raffishly hedonistic quality of snatched wartime leisure, with everyone chugging away ferociously on cigarettes and knocking back the brandy at a terrific rate. These are characters seizing the moment and jesting as if their lives depended upon it. The spectre of mortality hangs over the sunlit summer scene.

The production’s greatest comic coup – and a real inspiration on the part of Kavanaugh – is to have the Watch played by a Home Guard squad bearing a startling resemblance to the one in Dad’s Army. I usually find the laborious comedy and fatiguing wordplay of these scenes deeply tedious, but Ian Talbot’s puffed-up Capt Mainwaring of a Dogberry, and John Conroy’s deliciously languid John Le Mesurier of a Verges bring the ancient jokes to new-minted life. It’s a terrific comic idea, superbly executed.

Kavanaugh clearly has a natural instinct for comedy. I have never seen the great eavesdropping scenes more entertainingly played, and the moment when Don Pedro (excellent Chris Larkin) deliberately stands on the concealed Benedick’s hand is played with a sadistic relish that is alone worth the price of admission. As that gag suggests, Kavanaugh is keenly aware of the pain and cruelty that shadow this sparkling comedy.

As Beatrice, Nicola Redmond movingly suggests the hurt that underlies her character’s hard-boiled manner and relentless defensive banter. She has been badly let down by Benedick before the action starts and cannot bear to let him see how much it hurts. She lets us see, though, with sudden poignant glimpses of desperation. The scene in which Hero (a touchingly young and vulnerable Sally Hawkins) is so cruelly abused at her own wedding is played with real emotional violence. Tam Williams‘ previously amiable Claudio suddenly reveals a streak of pure sadism, and it is horrible to see the girl’s father, Leonato (Timothy Kightley), so eager to condemn his daughter too. Sudden death and the desire for revenge (“Kill Claudio”) seem set to shatter the brittle eggshell comedy.

The production’s finest performance comes from Tom Mannion as a very Scottish Benedick. He makes every line count, with a mixture of brilliant comic timing and a chippy sense of aggrievement that puts one in mind of Billy Connolly. But Mannion also touchingly captures Benedick’s wonder when he realises that he is loved, and his growth in moral stature in the course of the play.

This is a production that combines a deliciously sparky sense of humour with an underlying seriousness of purpose. Kavanaugh is undoubtedly a talent to watch. ~ Charles Spencer, The Daily Telegraph 22/6/00
Critics’ Reviews: (#2)

Neatly pre-empting the usual hazard of planes droning over Regent’s Park during performances, Rachel Kavanaugh’s joyous production of “Much Ado About Nothing” at the Open Air Theatre begins with a group of characters rushing onstage to cheer as a Hurricane or Spitfire roars overhead.

For this is 1945, and Dogberry’s Watch will include a landgirl and be armed with pitchforks and cricket bats. We must presume, however, that the telephone lines are down because news that the victorious army is on its way home is brought by a messenger, as usual, and here they come, led by General Don Pedro wearing smart khaki and a fine row of medal ribbons.

When Shakespeare’s plot requires swords to be rattled, these come readily to hand because by now the officers have emerged from dinner wearing their regimental “blues”. Kavanaugh has turned Messina into a very English community, with Ian Talbot’s wonderfully ignorant Dogberry drilling his Home Guard like Arthur Lowe, even having a ohn Le Mesurier on hand in John Conway’s dithering Verges. But the switch from Sicily works perfectly, never more so than in allowing Tom Mannion to play Benedick as a visiting Scot. This approach may have been suggested by the line he speaks to close the play, “Strike up, pipers”. He is by then wearing a kilt, and the dance that follows is a Highland Reel, in which even Michael Medwin’s crumbling old Antonio gallantly takes his turn.

Mannion’s pawky delivery of the lines, seldom with a smile but keenly watching their effect, introduces some unusual word-breaks to show us the way Benedick’s mind is working. He turns his “Love me! why, it must be requited,” into four separate sentences, starting off with a trio of emphasised exclamations – “Love? Me? Why?” His performance is a most human portrayal of this most humane man, whose departure to do Beatrice’s bidding achieves a gravely purposeful dignity.

Her command, “Kill Claudio”, gets a laugh, as it always does nowadays, and really there has to be some way of preventing this. No matter how much of a shock the two curt words cause in us, their function is to plunge the relationship to a deeper level and to carry forward the righting of a grievous wrong. Even nervous laughter has no place here.

But this apart, Nicola Redmond is a shrewdly dry Beatrice, turning her head to be sure everyone in the household has caught the point of her quips. She has an impish awareness of the ways of the world, making it only proper that, where Sally Hawkins‘ Hero comes to the ball as a cute angel, Beatrice appears in top hat and tails as Dietrich.

Kit Surrey’s design fills gaps in the natural hedging with clumps of topiary, pushed forward by Mannion in his frenzy to eavesdrop. Here Chris Larkin’s Pedro carefully contrives to grind the poor fellow’s fingers beneath his heel. Kavanaugh brings Pedro’s evil brother John back to stand alongside him at the end. Lovers may sort out their difficulties but wickedness remains unresolved. ~ Jeremy Kingston, The Times 19/6/00
Critics’ Reviews: (#3)

On a fine midsummer’s evening, there’s not much that beats watching Shakespeare outdoors. Rachel Kavanaugh’s suave revival of “Much Ado About Nothing” is no picnic fodder, but it’s far more successful in prising open the comedy’s crueller moments than it is in communicating the delights of its sparring, gender-war wit. Not a definitive staging, it nevertheless affords, given the right meteorological conditions, a great excursion.

Locating the action in an English stately home and its ornamental garden licenses a pretty set design but the frames of reference are odd: this Messina is both reeling from the news that WWII is over and embracing the carefree excesses of the jazz age (the subsequent likening of the nightwatchmen to ‘Dad’s Army’ adds to the confusion). The returning soldiers don’t seem particularly shellshocked and partake energetically in the pleasures of lawn tennis and tea dancing. Beatrice’s cucumber cool barbs about the chaps sound uncomfortably harsh in the given context, though. Often; the cigarette-flicking poise of Nicola Redmond’s man-scorning wag seems not so much artfully disdainful as downright sour.

There isn’t initially, enough playfulness between her and Tom Mannion’s peevish Benedick for their disclaimers about passion to have much comic or sexual tension. Solo, they are more endearing – particularly in the two eavesdropping scenes, in which each hilariously scuttles to and fro as their friends elaborate upon the other’s undeclared love. It is in the wedding-day wronging of Hero that the production lands a direct punch in the gut. Sally Hawkins summons a mixture of blubbering outrage and overwhelmed gentleness to make you pity this tongue-tied maiden; Tam Williams, meanwhile, has just the right air of boyish arrogance as her falsely jealous lover Claudio. As Benedick and Beatrice broach their long-awaited kiss – on the back of the others’ misfortune – the serious and silly strands merge pleasingly and the production acquires that necessary something to leave you exiting on a mild high.

~ Dominic Cavendish, Time Out 21/6/00

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