Review: MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, National Theatre

Seasides are sites of transgression - you see it in the playful architecture, the 'Kiss Me Quick" hats, the furtive glances of those who shouldn't be sharing an early morning coffee, but are. There's joy too - release not just from the oppressive order of conventionality, but a sense of new beginnings, of fresh air and fresh starts, of limitless horizons.

Director, Simon Goodwin, commits wholly to these possibilities and, aided my a magnificent set from Anna Fleischle, creates a Hotel Messina in which relationships start faulty and become faulty, but are ultimately mended because people see the errors of their ways and are big enough to do something about it. There's a lesson in more than just love there.

Benedick and Beatrice could never imagine being married to anyone, least of all each other, subscribing to Hal David's lyric about a kiss, "You get enough germs to catch pneumonia / After you do, he'll never phone ya". They would, of course, be matched 100% on a 21st century dating site, the same smart mouths, the same cynical worldviews, the same, unacknowledged, sense that life might just be passing them by.

Hero and Claudio are younger, head over heels in love and can't wait for the Friar to legitimises the sizzling sexual energy that burns between them. But Don John, a small man in every sense, lurks in the shadows, determined to bring down Hero and sink the marriage in false accusations of impropriety. For a while, he succeeds, but Much Ado About Nothing is in the Comedy section of the Shakespearean canon, so you kinda know that all will be well that ends well.

What fun we have getting there! I cannot recall a production at The National Theatre more gorgeous to gaze upon - Evie Gurney gives the gals big trouser suits alternating with cocktail dresses and the boys dress uniforms and lounge lizard tailoring, all in a gelato colour pallet of pistachios, raspberries and lemon. To be honest, I'd have happily just watched the hotel lift, with its sweeping arrowhead to indicate the floors in its art deco styling and been satisfied!

John Heffernan has a lot of fun with Benedick, especially when hiding out in an ice-cream cart (not for the first time, I was reminded of some of Benny Hill's big TV set piece scenes at the height of his fame in the 70s, naughtiness and slapstick in the air). He does the serious stuff well too, standing by the heinously traduced Hero even if he is motivated to some extent by his decency opening a path to Beatrice's heart.

Katherine Parkinson gives plenty of cynicism to the woman who slowly comes round to Benedick's charms, timing the laughlines perfectly and suggesting that plenty of her single girl feistiness will carry over into married life.

Ioanna Kimbrook and Eben Figueiredo make for a handsome pair of younger lovers, delivering real pain and real redemption as their love is cracked all but beyond repair and then put back together again in that somewhat glib, but nevertheless familiar way Shakespeare has of painting himself out of tight corners.

There's super work from a very strong support cast in which Pheobe Horn is all sexed up as the eager Margaret (a super professional debut) and David Fynn is in scene-stealing form as Dogberry, the dim but lovable leader of a Keystone Kops hotel security team who saves the day in the nick of time. A mention too for David Judge as the villainous Don John, a nasty part to assume but he gets it right and to Wendy Kweh who nails Antonia's applause line perfectly.

Two and a half hours or so flies by, afloat on a sea of wit and no little wisdom, the show a delight for eyes and ears. It's seldom that one sees an artistic vision so fully realised and, in a world in which travel is now allowed, but increasingly expensive and difficult, what a pleasure it is to embrace, albeit vicariously, a trip to Sicily in the company of such beautiful and funny companions.

Now, where's Hotel Messina on Expedia?

Much Ado About Nothing is at The National Theatre until 10 September

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