“I do love nothing in the world so well as you: is not that strange?”
Tom Hiddleston is Benedick and Hayley Atwell is Beatrice. Two of their generation’s finest actors collaborate with director Jamie Lloyd again in this savagely funny and beautifully tender battle of wits.
There are those who have become cynical about Lloyd ever since his career went into overdrive with his smash 2023 revival of Sunset Boulevard. And to be fair, those that moaned about the casting of Sigourney Weaver in The Tempest – which preceded Much Ado at Drury Lane, and shares much of the same cast – were basically right, though one celebrity miscasting hardly ruins a career. But accusations that he relies too much on live video (he’s used it in two shows), the same monochrome palette (okay, there has been a lot of black) and relentless tasteful moodiness are all but trolled by this none-more-pink symphony of a production, that totally abandons conventional cool in favour of Tom Hiddleston’s dad dancing.
Blissfully, the cameras and mike stands have gone. The chairs, though, have been unleashed to live their best lives in the numerous giddy song and dance scenes the punctuate this frothy confection of courtly shenanigans. As did every soul in the theatre, who audibly had a blast throughout and thundered to their feet for the jubilant ovation/curtain call boogie.
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Public Theater's Shakespeare in the Park Off-Broadway |
2011 | West End |
Shakespeare's Globe Production West End |
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Theatre for a New Audience Production Off-Broadway |
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Public Theater's Shakespeare in the Park Off-Broadway |
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Royal Shakespeare Company West End Revival Production West End |
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Rose Theatre Kingston Ten-Year Anniversary Production West End |
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Shakespeare In the Park Off-Broadway |
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