One of Shakespeare's best known comedies, Much Ado About Nothing has delighted audiences for centuries - obstinate former lovers, Beatrice and Benedick, try to deny their feelings for one another, while Hero and Claudio fall hard and fast in love. Unfortunately, evil princess Don John has plans to see this love fall apart, sewing seeds of doubt and framing the virtuous Hero as an adulterous woman.
A supplementary introduction sets the tone for this play - nobody laughs at the attempt to show a humorous jostle for power.
While they have chosen inarguably excellent material for their performance, this is unfortunately one of the best things that can be said about this production. Hosting the show outdoors is a lovely idea, especially with current weather conditions as they are, but if you are going to put on a play in the middle of a busy market square, then you must be prepared to contend with the inevitable noise and distractions that come with such a venue. It is true that the cast did their best to battle the continuous disruptions, but the disappointing reality was that this play was not technically nor artistically engaging enough to keep our attention. One wonders why a decision was made not to have any amplification for the cast's voices, especially considering a speaker was present on stage throughout, serving only as a source of music.
With minimal sense of narrative, almost no real characterisation (with some notable exceptions), and multiple half-baked dance sequences with actors looking around at each other to find the choreography, it cannot be said that this production understood Shakespeare's assignment in any concrete way.
As well as not having a grasp of the text we would hope for, most of the cast seemed to equate volume with character - while projection was most certainly needed in the space, when the only character trait for both the romantic leads is 'loud' there is work to be done. Even then, somehow almost all performances were overacted to the point of clowning and we still could barely hear what was being said (not helped in the slightest by the fact that cast members regularly had their backs to half of the audience). Further still, if characters aren't going to be distinct from one another when multiroling, then at the very least more drastic costume changes are required.
The play isn't entirely without merit, with a couple of genuinely funny moments of physical comedy (though most often completely overdone) and other more ridiculously camp tapestries that aren't leant into as much as they could be (Hero's "death" is quite brilliant, but just needs more!) And we are blessed with two talented performances: Ivana Rakic gives an amusing pantomime villain in Don John (though certainly would be even better suited to Cymbeline's Queen), but really comes into her own as the beloved dim Dogberry, handling prop mishaps with grace and improvising around mistakes; and Keaton Wilkerson delivers a gorgeously sincere Hero - he doesn't ham up her femininity for laughs, but simply shows us a young girl in love, as well as leaning into the camp chaos when appropriate.
All this being said, it is an evening of free theatre which is not to be sniffed at.
Perhaps one for people with existing knowledge of the plot, this light-hearted queer take of Much Ado About Nothing runs at Camden Market Hawley Wharf until 30th August.
Author: Penny Lane