Theatre re-review: Much Ado About Nothing (Shakespeare's Globe)

[nick730]

Just a quick note on Much Ado About Nothing at the Globe as my earlier review of the show still stands. Tonight's was the performance I'd initially booked for but I also went a couple of weeks ago to catch Eve Best as Beatrice before she left the show. Seeing how packed it was tonight I'm sure I could have returned my ticket but I enjoyed it enough first time to see it again, and the news that Naomi Frederick, who was a lovely Rosalind a couple of years ago at this venue would replace Best¹ made for an added incentive. If anything, apart from a high number of irritating audience members, I probably enjoyed the show more this time. Perhaps having resigned myself to Paul Hunter's irritating tourettes version of Dogberry (and fuunsaiki is right, he does insert a tic specifically before each malapropism, which strikes me as missing the point more than a little bit) in advance made it easier for me to just tune out during those bits. Naomi Frederick meanwhile fits in well to this interpretation of Beatrice, sweet and enthusiastic if not quite as geekily flailing as Best's version. Interesting, too, to notice that regardless of which actress is playing her, in this production Beatrice's demand to "kill Claudio" is greeted with laughter, while Catherine Tate's take on the same line drew gasps of shock.

Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare is in repertory until the 1st of October at Shakespeare's Globe.

¹originally slated to do only a few performances, Frederick has just now been confirmed to the end of the run