St Mary's Calne
'As I had never visited Shakespeare’s Globe before, I was quite apprehensive about watching Much Ado About Nothing on Sunday 9th October. However, it turned out to be a wonderful experience and really brought the play to life for me.
The director, Lucy Bailey, set the play in 1945 in Italy, just after the war had ended. From the very start of the play, the ensemble captures their audience with jubilance and song, punctuated by the all-female accordion quintet. Bailey successfully blends the ridiculous and bawdy comedy of the play with the elegance of 1945 society to create a deeply engaging and comedic play.
Antonio and Leonato are transformed into spirited matriarchs and Benedick and Beatrice play the role of inevitable lovers under the summer sun. Bailey captures the audience in the well-known scenes where Beatrice and Benedick are deceived into love; we see Beatrice caught up in a tennis net and watered with a sprinkler whilst Benedick is snapped at with pruning shears and ends up underneath a tree. The cast combine brilliant improvisation (due to the sound of a Heathrow plane) with the seriousness of Hero’s ‘death’ and brutal treatment by Claudio.
I was expecting a drawn out and dull version of Much Ado About Nothing but instead the combination of Bailey’s originality and Shakespeare’s comedic text created a light-hearted and enjoyable experience filled with drinking (theirs!), dancing, fighting and Benedick and Beatrice’s “merry war”. All in all, a superb production.'
Honor (UV- Year 11)