Theatre review: Much Ado About Nothing (RSC / RST)

Theatrical 2025 looks set to be memorable in part for Shakespeare productions whose high concepts tip over from the eccentric to the downright daft, and following Hamlet on the Titanic onto the RSC's main stage is Much Ado About Nothing, with Michael Longhurst's debut for the company moving the play from the world of soldiers and orange groves to that of professional footballers and WAGs. FC Messina have just won a European championship and the celebrations will be held at the home of the team sponsor, Leonato (understudy Nick Cavaliere,) a media mogul whose sports channels show all their games, with his niece Beatrice (Freema Agyeman) as one of the post-match interviewers. This is how she knows one of the players, Benedick (Nick Blood,) and the two have a brief sexual history that makes their encounters spiky to this day.

The team manager is Don Pedro (Olivier Huband,) whose brother Don John (Nojan Khazai) is one of the players but missed most of the match: Injured three minutes in, he was substituted with Claudio (Daniel Adeosun,) who then went on to score a hat-trick and win the match.

Now with the production providing an all-new motivation for his actions, John decides to take Claudio down a peg or two with a vicious scheme of rumours and lies about Hero (understudy Megan Keaveny,) Leonato's daughter and the love of Claudio's life ever since he met her thirty seconds ago. The broad romantic comedy - largely centred around a plot to make Beatrice and Benedick fall in love with each other, or acknowledge that that's how they already feel - gives way to something darker.

The show opens with Jon Bausor's set taking us to the team dressing room, with a hot tub remaining a central feature throughout, and frankly any production that features both Nick Blood and Azan Ahmed in nothing but football shorts wasn't going to struggle to get me on side. So it's good to report this one goes the extra mile and then some: This is one of the Shakespeare plays I've seen well into double figures and, a handful of dodgy ones (including a recent pink mess) aside, it's one that almost always hits the spot. Even up against that competition, and both in terms of comedy and cleverness, Longhurst delivers a god-tier Much Ado.

The football setting, including just the right amount of script tweaks, is well thought-out and properly followed through: It takes us to a lighter place than these characters having just returned from war, but still one of high stakes, big egos and young men used to getting their own way. Obviously Claudio is a pretty impossible character to play, especially in the position of romantic lead Shakespeare puts him in, but Adeosun goes the generally effective route of highlighting how he's not that bright, easily misled by John and his fake news.

Jay Taylor's Borachio becomes a ruthless paparazzo, whose plot to shame Hero for John also has the benefit to himself of a scandal he's got all the (deepfaked) footage of, and the slut-shaming of Hero becomes a wider issue as Tal Rosner's projections flash up a social media storm of support and attacks for her. As well as the tweet "I bet Don John's got a nine incher." I can't confirm or deny that but I can say Khazai mines more laughs than usual out of the underwritten villain.

Perhaps most effective is what this all does to Leonato, a character I dislike more and more as the years go by. The head of a media empire is a figure we can already see as a dodgy character, and the wide-boy persona barely conceals a bully with a sense of possessiveness over his wife and daughter as well as his staff: Here Margaret (Gina Bramhill) is a willing participant in the scheme, not out of any malice to Hero but as revenge for Leonato constantly groping her. Rewritten as his wife, Antonia's (Tanya Franks) defence of her daughter feels like an overdue fight back against an oppressive husband.

The second half's silliest comic subplot introduces Dogberry (Antonio Magro,) head of the billionaire's private security team whose actions help resolve the main plot. It perfectly serves its purpose as light relief to the dark twist the story's taken, and makes you wonder why these scenes can so often be a lowlight of the play: Broad but not downright hammy (understudy Arthur Wilson's Verges is very keen to use his taser,) playing the malapropisms completely straight is all it takes for the gag to get big laughs.

Such an outrageously attractive Beatrice and Benedick pairing have no right to also be as good together as Agyeman and Blood are, but this is not only an electrically funny clash of wits but one of the most moving ones as well: "I do love nothing in the world so well as you—is not that strange" actually had me welling up. And we get all the physical comedy the gulling scenes provide for, with Benedick scurrying around the stage in only a towel, so Beatrice's "You have no stomach, signor" has a new meaning when she's staring at his abs.

Then Beatrice tries to hide behind a DJ booth, accidentally setting off a series of ironically apt love songs, while the cold she has in later scenes now becomes a hangover from Hero's hen party. The two also absolutely convince that their feelings for each other have been real from the start. Overall, this was one of those shows I came to with high hopes, and was glad to see them exceeded.

Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare is booking until the 24th of May at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon.

Running time: 3 hours including interval.

Photo credit: Marc Brenner.