Much Ado About Nothing

The RSC seems to be concentrating much more on Shakespeare's comedies at the moment than on his tragedies. As part of this rash of happy endings, Much Ado About Nothing finished off the 1991/1992 season on the main stage in the Barbican, having previously opened in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford in April 1990.

Bill Alexander's production of one of Shakespeare's best-loved comedies was a popular and pleasurable RSC success, uniting Susan Fleetwood's spirited and funny Beatrice with Roger Allam's compelling Benedick. Although the play naturally focuses on this duo, Alex Kingston's Hero and John McAndrew's Claudio deserved mention, as did George Raistrick's reliable Dogberry. John Carlisle was a satisfyingly stern Don Pedro. Ken Shorter played Borachio and Paul Webster was Leonato.

If the staging, which was lit by Brian Harris and designed by Kit Surrey with music by llona Sekacz, provided no radical new insights into the play, it was at least an enjoyable and fresh visit from an old friend.

City Limits - 18/4/91 - Ros Asquith

Instead of being embarrassed by the intrusion of tragedy into comedy, Alexander goes full tilt for both. Although hampered by a Claudio to whom the throes of love and rage seem as thrilling as a wet Sunday in Hove - in Susan Fleetwood's scintillating Beatrice he has scathing wit, passionate sisterhood and razor sharp intellect. They don't make parts like this for women too often (come to think of it, in Shakespeare's time she would have been played by a boy...) and Fleetwood has the measure of the role: the mind of Dorothy Parker in the body of Scarlett O'Hara. Roger Allam's Benedick, though often very funny, isn't quite up to her, veering dangerously close to buffoonery. It's OK to laugh at him as well as with him, but pink high heels make him come on more like Malvolio than a match for Beatrice. Because what is exciting about their romance is that it is a collision of equals, and you don't have to puncture the bloke to inflate the woman - unless you think romance is for softies, But I carp, I've never seen the repartee more dazzling outside my imagination and the final embrace knocks Scarlett and Rhett for six. Paul Webster's Leonato perfectly encapsulates the production's breadth: from gentleness to wrath to grief and back again.

What's On - 17/4/91 - Carole Woddis

As bitter-sweet as a blood orange, Much Ado About Nothing is one of Shakespeare's great middle comedies. Written when he was still only 3O, it enjoys the priceless badinage of Beatrice and Benedict - the couple whose war of words hides a mutual attraction of considerable depth. But Much Ado is more than just a merry crowd of courtiers passing the time in idle cocktail chatter. Beatrice and Benedict emerge as the first very modern couple whose alliance is built on a true and mutual respect. There is, too, an under-lying edge of brutality to the play, in the general air of malevolency and mischief making set up by Don John - the villain of the piece - but quite as much in the behaviour of the 'gentlemen' soldiers, Claudio and Don Pedro whose compliance and callous machismo is revealed as even more appalling behaviour.

Bill Alexander's delightful late Elizabethan-early Caroline production with its tall green box hedges and swirling satin skirts captures that mixed but mellow mood entirely. Susan Fleetwood's spirited Beatrice sets the tone; this Beatrice would be a match for any man but there is no brittle malice in her wit: she is not a harpy, simply a rather bright woman who has been waiting for a man to match her. The glory of her partnership with Roger Allam's Benedict is that they visibly glow as human beings from defensive sparring partners into mature lovers, ironically released by flattery each is told the other loves them - from their self-appointed prisons. Somewhat lightweight as Benedict, Allam nonetheless has a wicked way with the audience and also grows into something considerably more substantial. Elsewhere, John McAndrew's Claudio is a rather over-serious Claudia (how Hero can bear to marry such a ghastly wimp is beyond me but then she, poor girl, doesn't get to have much of say in the matter) while the comedy scenes of the pompous Dogberry (George Raistrick), the ancient Verges (Arnold Yarrow) and his Neighbourhood Watch - set up as so many black-attired young puritans - are perfectly judged, affectionate, spoofs. Nice, very nice indeed.

Independent - 18/4/91 - Louis Kingsley

In Bill Alexander's pleasing Stratford transfer, set in the kempt confines of a 17th-century English country garden, it is not merely in their witty banter that Beatrice and Benedick surpass their youthful companions.

A reluctance to acknowledge the passage of time cannot altogether conceal that Susan Fleetwood's repartee, though softened by smiles, is more waspish than flippant. This Beatrice's spinsterhood is only a hair's breadth from permanence. Benedick, stripping publicly to the waist to wash away the grime of battle, shows an older soldier's scant regard for female sensibilities. Roger Allam, a cigar clamped firmly between his lips, delivers his speeches and the tell-tale puffs of smoke which reveal his whereabouts with expert comic timing. There is none of the self-doubting melancholic about this performance. Allam and Fleetwood, their mutual attraction sustained by the inevitability of logic rather than of chemistry, are destined for a lasting match in which a mature acceptance has already begun to temper habitual sparring.

Spectator - 20/4/91 - Christopher Edwards

The great strength of the RSC's production of Much Ado, now transferred from Stratford to London, is its moral and intellectual backbone. This may sound an odd recommendation for a Shakespearean comedy whose main attraction is usually the banter between Beatrice and Benedick. In the not so distant RSC past the banter has been an excuse for the worst excesses of camp posturing. Not here. Susan Fleetwood is a vibrant, clever, immensely attractive and feminine Beatrice. She is also very funny. Roger Allam starts out as an uncouth, outspoken bachelor soldier but very soon his own subtle wits show him that Beatrice is worth making an exception for. The spirited verbal exchanges between these two protagonists are delightfully tart and poised. Behind the banter, however, we are always kept aware of a potentially tragic shadow. Uncharacteristically for the RSC, this production lacks inspiration in its support cast but it is both moving and funny in the areas that matter most.

Daily Express - 12/4/91 - Maureen Paton

Fortunately for actress Susan Fleetwood, she's much better looking than brother Mick of Fleetwood Mac fame. Nevertheless the lady is such a strapping wench that one could easily imagine her bashing away on drums in a rock band. It is this quality of feminine strength, if not stridency, that Bill Alexander's latest Shakespearean production for the RSC exploits so avidly. The handsomely sexy Susan plays that stubborn spinster Beatrice as a rapier-waving bully who crosses swords with the male sex in the very first scene. It's a significant warm-up for her "merry war" with Benedick, the unconfirmed bachelor soldier who proves a match for her in every way. This is a lady that doth protest too much, a sure sign of her susceptibility in the presence of the man she airily professes to hate.

The proud-bosomed Ms Fleetwood makes quite an impact on her Cavalier in Mr Alexander's post-Civil War setting. But it is Roger Allams endearing gasbag of a Benedick that is the chief delight of a crowd-pleasing evening. Irresistibly amusing in his amiable exasperation, he sends out smoke signals of distress from his cigar as he nervously primes himself to make love rather than war.

Beatrice and Benedick have long fought their mutual attraction, but Allam convincingly shows how he finally matures by exchanging male camaraderie for chivalry towards women. The casting of the two leads, plus fine support from John Carlisle, makes up for John McAndrew's mediocre Claudio and George Raistrick's disappointing Dogberry.

Much Ado was always the Beatrice and Benedick Show, anyway. Brian Harris's wondrous lighting gives a Van Dyck glory to the amorous revelations in this comedy with such thoroughly modem manners.

The Times - 12/4/91 - Jeremy Kingston

Bill Alexander's lovely production is set in a garden. In the foreground the velvet lawn merges into a marble pavement, like the landscape of a dream, as though to make a place for scenes Shakespeare sets elsewhere, in Leonato's house or in Messina's streets. But as it turns out everything happens in the garden (designed by Kit Surrey), a deep, green space enclosed by not quite symmetrical yew hedges that leaves gaps for surprise entrances, and arches where the villainous Don John is discovered lurking, like a poisonous statue.

The garden is a formal place where marriages are arranged but also, when hearts and footsteps quicken, where love grows. Just as certain, it is where love can nearly be destroyed by hatred.

Alex Kingston's Hero and her maidservants run onto the grass in a flurry of silk farthingales: exuberant youngsters seemingly without cares. Beatrice (Susan Fleetwood) contrives an exuberance of a different kind: her thick red hair is tempest-tossed and the playful sport with a sword, poking it at Leonato's midriff, prefigures her verbal sparring with the younger men.

There is something strained and too harsh in Fleetwood's playing of the early scenes, more than her awkward position as poor relation explains, for in mocking Benedick as a licensed jester she unwittingly describes herself. Not until her scene with John Carlisle's courteously condescending Prince does she ease up on the frenzied wit and let a moment of reflection suggest the presence of pain. This is developed in her gulling scene. Where Alexander gives full rein to the merriment when it is Benedick's turn, for Beatrice his approach is more sober and penetrating. At Hero's "She cannot love" a shadow passes over Fleetwood's face. And for the rest of the scene she stands motionless behind the hedge. Afterwards the air of a manic tragedy-queen vanishes.

Roger Allam's Benedick is the glory of this production. He is a bit a jester, even recall in Terry Thomas when his teeth flash. His voice dances up the scale, almost expiring as it approaches the word "marriage" which he lets dangle in the air as if held by invisible tongs. As he perches inside a cypress for his blissfully funny gulling scene, the smoke from his cheroot comes puffing out like signals of distress. Yet the passion of his later scenes is implicit in his early frolics - jesters are sober at heart - so that it is fitting that this production should end with Beatrice almost swooning in his arms during a long, intense, delirious kiss.

Time Out - 17/4/91 - Nick Curtis

Shakespeare's witty comedy looks very meagre fare in Bill Alexander's languid production, which squanders an excellent cast with its terminal lack of pace. The duelling banter of anti-lovers Beatrice and Benedick - a feisty Susan Fleetwood and raffish, moustachioed Roger Allam - is well played. Allam works the audience like an expert stand-up and Fleetwood goes for some very broad laughs, but the material is spread too thin. This results in a lack of balance between their comic story and the tragedy of Beatrice's cousin Hero.

John McAndrew is boyishly convincing as the gulled Claudio and Alex Kingston works hard as Hero, leading a group of girlies who constantly giggle when not cantering on and off stage, but the acting honours are stolen by John Carlisle's dry, stately elder bachelor Don Pedro. Kit Surrey's ugly set of plasticky, sculpted hedges requires props to be flown or wheeled on and off, to cover these scene changes, and the fact that he's overstretched the play, Alexander packs his production with clumsy business. Seldom has the play's title seemed more apt.

Financial Times - 11/4/91 - Malcolm Rutherford

The Royal Shakespeare Company continues its reconquest of the Barbican with a masterly performance of Much Ado About Nothing. From the moment that Susan Fleetwood's Beatrice speaks her early line about Benedick "How many hath he killed and eaten in these wars?" - with such delicious, teasing sexiness, we know that this is a winner.

In fact, we should have known even earlier. It is the wonderful Barbican stage, properly used, that helps. This time the colours are mainly blue and green. Some of the devices are similar to those in Love's Labour's Lost which led the RSC's triumphant return to, London two weeks ago. The stage is lined with huge hedges with a touch of topiary thrown in. There is room to hide and room to be seen. Bill Alexander's direction uses every part of it and employs music and shades of lighting to the full.

It is still Beatrice's and Benedick's play. How could it not be? But the real achievement of the production is that it makes something of every part, every line and every change of mood.

Beatrice and Benedick are set apart not only by their wit, and mutual attraction, but by their height. There is no better example of that than when they are on stage and hardly speaking. They are in the background when Claudio denounces Hero at the wedding ceremony, but they are there as silent, superior figures being brought together by the apparent tragedy. The delivery of Beatrice's request to kill Claudio is electric.

But Roger Allam's Benedick has had his moments of comedy, and they have been spell-binding. Watch the way he plays the audience when he is alone on stage talking about Beatrice. The transformation from cigar-smoking cynic to a man prepared to kill for his love is remarkable. Yet is absolutely fitting that the pair of them return to their jesting ways at the end, making a perfect symmetry.

There are other delights along the way. At first John McAndrew's Claudio seems too slight and too small, then we see that is a device to allow him to grow in stature when he thinks he has been wronged. Even the more melodramatic parts of Much Ado come out as drama in this production, as McAndrew shows in the aborted wedding scene. Alec Linstead makes the friar who comes to the rescue a part worth playing.

The other part which comes into its own is John Carlisle's Don Pedro. He has an unforgettable voice and sense of timing. (He ought to marry Margaret in the end.) Then there is Dogberry, played with amiable pomposity by George Raistrick. And a lot more besides: the evening is an unmitigated pleasure.

Guardian - 13/4/91 - Nicholas de Jongh

Bill Alexander's farewell production of Much Ado About Nothing at the Barbican is cast in the fine, romantic glow of a Jacobean manor garden at summer's height. The radiance is achieved, in Brian Harris's exquisite lighting design, with pools of light which catch characters full face and cast others into shade.

And the staging, in Kit Surrey's vista of green lawns, tall, topiary hedges, cut through with arches and set against a changing cyclorama of pink and blue clouds, is not just lovely to look at. The location may be English but the staging emphasises the quite grand context in which the play is set, and establishes the garden as a privileged zone for game and romance. And all those hedges, not to mention a hollow tree, are ideally suited to a play whose plot and whose comedy depends so much upon effortless eavesdropping.

Roger Allam's moustachioed cheroot-smoking Benedick hides in that hollow tree, and signals astonishment that Beatrice loves him with a series of smoke signals. Similarly Susan Fleetwood's Beatrice scuttles behind a high hedge.

It is on Beatrice and Benedick that the play's impetus always depends.

When the production was first seen at Stratford last year a few unsophisticated males hinted that Miss Fleetwood was too old to be matched against the younger Allam. It was as if they did not know that some men are sexually attracted by women older than they. In terms of the play her casting works powerfully.

The flame-haired Miss Fleetwood, first seen in the midst of a fencing match, advances upon Benedick as if he were a sporting target. In this boisterously pitched performance, she is camp, mocking and exuberant. You sense that all this gaminess is desire sublimated. "Possessed by a fury" says Benedick of her, and so she is. But there is an emotionally devastating revelation when the comic mask is peeled away. Overhearing the news that Benedick loves her she stands centre stage, against a sunset sky, and is transformed. Her voice lightens half an octave and softens. The vulnerability and the hope is revealed.

Unfortunately Miss Fleetwood does not fully develop from this point of illumination. She does not so easily become the lover or indeed the loved, while Roger Allam, whose Benedick has lighter foundations, seizes his comic chances, developing from the moustachioed braggart to a shaven and less bombastic romancer whom John Carlisle's Don Pedro broodingly watches.

The second stage of the production does not fully strike the necessary darker notes. Vincent Regan's Don John is so openly sinister he threatens to put the ham back in Hammer films.

In dealing with sexual accusation and suffering, John McAndrew's limpish Claudio and Paul Webster's preposterous Leonato, an Edwardian caricature of suffering, the production misses targets. But the prevailing atmosphere is so intense and so appealing that Alexander's farewell to in RSC which he has memorably served with productions ancient and modern for two decades becomes a swansong occasion.

Daily Telegraph - 13/4/91 - Charles Spencer

Whenever I see Much Ado About Nothing, my thoughts always turn somewhat rancorously to George Bernard Shaw, who despised Beatrice and Benedick with a characteristically perverse passion. "Benedick's pleasantries might pass at a singsong in a public house parlour. Precisely the same thing is true of Beatrice. There is only one thing worse than the Elizabethan 'merry gentleman' and that is the Elizabethan 'merry lady'." This is pretty rich when one remembers some of GBS's arid, sexless and obnoxiously clever-clever characters.

The great strength of Bill Alexander's production of Much Ado, which has arrived at the Barbican from Stratford, is that it never leaves the audience in any doubt about the depth of feeling that underlies the comic banter. His is a reassuringly traditional staging, devoid of directorial gimmickry, firmly set in its period and played out against the immaculately trimmed yew hedges of a formal garden (design by Kit Surrey).

Susan Fleetwood's Beatrice is instantly and warmly likeable, a woman of real spirit, ribald, genuinely funny and bursting with barely suppressed sexual yearning (you only have to look at the way she handles a sword to see that). Roger Allam's Benedick is every bit as appealing. A cigar-smoking slob at the start, he brings a hilarious touch of farce to the proceeding and professional stand-up comedians could learn a thing or two from his wonderfully conspiratorial monologues to the audience.

These are people who use language to keep their passion in check, but when the banter has to stop as evil intrudes upon their idyllic garden world, the production becomes moving as well as amusing. Alexander never loses sight of the play's potentially tragic dimension and there is anguish and anger amid the laughter.

It's not all perfect. The pace is sometimes too slow, and several of the supporting performances lack the illuminating detail that might bring them fully to life.

Nevertheless this remains a rewardingly clear-headed and good-hearted Much Ado which will satisfy all but the most rabid seekers of gratuitous novelty.