Stage-to-screen review: Much Ado About Nothing(RSC / RST & BBC)

After Covid kept me away from Stratford-upon-Avon for two years, the aftermath of 1990s Gladiators winner Storm Eunice kept me away a bit longer when I was due to see the RST reopen with Roy Alexander Weise's take on Much Ado About Nothing. The BBC has come up with another chance to catch it though, with a filmed performance that's now available on iPlayer. Much Ado is set to be this year's most ubiquitous Shakespeare play, and another 2022 meme it's contributed to is the understudy having to permanently take over a lead role: Michael Balogun, himself the beneficiary of a sudden promotion, dropped out just before opening and Luke Wilson (not that one) got the plum role of Benedick. And he makes the most of the opportunity, easily becoming one of the best things in a frankly bizarre production whose high concept design overwhelms it.

Theatre review: The Majority

Although the current policy at the Dorfman is not to play shows in rep, Mosquitoes gets a bit of a break as another show uses its in-the-round set to tell a different kind of story – although there’s still buzzing insects involved, as The Majority’s design (by Jemima Robinson) features a lot of bees and honeycomb motifs. It’s the latest play by Rob Drummond, aka that bloke I shot that time, who keeps an audience participation element but spreads it out equally this time: The last few years have been marked by hugely impactful votes on binary, not always well-defined choices, and this is the structure The Majority is based around. As with the recent Terror, every audience member is given a keypad which will record their vote on a number of yes/no questions posed by Drummond. Most of them will serve to give an idea of the audience’s moral position but a couple will affect where his story goes and how it’s told.

Theatre review: Sparks

Jess (Sophie Steer) turns up on the doorstep of a woman too stunned to speak, soaked by the rain and carrying a goldfish in a bowl. Simon Longman's Sparks is the classic theatrical staple of family members suddenly reunited after a long time apart - in this case over twelve years, and as the women only appear to be in their early twenties, it's obvious they were separated when they were very young. The woman is Jess' sister Sarah (Sally Hodgkiss,) who maintains a shocked silence as the girl who walked out one day and hasn't been heard from since returns as a motor-mouthed woman with a backpack full of booze. The latter is part of what will eventually help Sarah loosen up and discuss the abandonment she's felt since her last remaining relative left her, and the lonely life she's led since.