Much Ado

Much Ado, lest anyone be in any doubt, is intended as rom com. It is based on a comedy by William Shakespeare and centres on the trials and tribulations that attend two on-again/off-again romantic pairings that emerge when a group of soldiers arrive in town.

It is also, in the way of many such similar stories, made infuriating, confusing, perplexing and sometimes, even fascinating to a modern audience by the fact the plot is awash with characters saying the opposite of what they really think or pretending to be someone quite other than who they are. It's a trope that seems to have fallen out of favour, with the decline of farce in the British theatre. Perhaps that’s in part because modern audiences find the studied ignorance required to suspend belief under such extreme circumstances is just too much.

Still, Elizabethan audiences seem to have liked it. Thus, All's Well that Ends Well, which also relies on this sort of double-take and deception. As You Like It. Midsummer Night's Dream. There's a lot of it about.

Look out for plenty of ambiguous conversations, a barrel load of folks hiding behind bushes overhearing what they were never meant to hear; and expect, almost without exception, for them to mishear or otherwise take quite the wrong meaning from this or that eavesdrop. As result, not only does the course of true love ne'er run smooth, but in most cases seems destined to fall at the very first fence.

That is a long intro to explain why Shakespeare, espesh Shakespearean comedy is difficult area for modern audiences. Yes, there have been some notable updates, including Baz Luhrmann's 1996 adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, which takes the original play and dialogue and transposes it to modern times.

But I am always wary of such trickery; and here, I think, with justification. The film opens with Leonato (Peter Saracen) reading a note – a phone message? - to the effect that a boy's rugby team is about to descend on the girls' school that he runs. Coincidence of coincidence! Various boys have (romantic) history with various girls. So, the stage is set for unfinished business to play out over the next few hours and days of screen time.

The first shock to the system – it jars! - is that the message is the original Shakespeare, and it does not fit. That’s not insurmountable. I am not some weather-beat old fogey protesting at any and every update to Shakespearean presentation. But here, it does not fit.

In part, that seems to be due to a number of other decisions taken in the updating. There is a seriousness, an earnestness to the playing that is enemy to the lightness that much of this work needs. I don't “believe” the scenes where one or other boy emerges from the shower and towels himself off, while spouting Elizabethan earnestness.

Elsewhere, the directors, Hillary and Anna-Elizabeth Shakespeare, seem to have got round the embarrassment of Shakespeare in modern setting by requiring the characters to perform with a deliberate off-handedness, as though they are just reciting from a text. In one scene we have two characters moving the plot along via dialogue over a game of snooker. The words are quite unconnected to the on-screen action.

Worse, it felt like they were far more interested in the match – the snooker match that is – than any prospective romantic matches.

There is, too, to the colour palette of the filming a washed-out pastel quality.

After watching Much Ado, I wondered if part of the problem was that I am simply not a Shakespeare fan. After all, he writes “funny”! And the kaleidoscopic coupling and uncoupling that is at the heart of this play is neither believable, nor appealing to modern eyes. Is it?

Then I had the good fortune to watch the current RSC update of Much Ado About Nothing, courtesy of BBC4, and... I loved it! Why? First, because they treated the text as what it is: theatre, which is larger than life. They played it big, they played it loud. They even, I daresay, camped it up in places. None of the under-statement that attends the on-screen version.

Too, they played it colourful. Elaborate costumes. Rainbow make-up. Scenery that is far from realistic but catches the eye and fills the soul with joy. Parties are parties and not the drab plastic cup affairs that play out in Much Ado.

That nailed it for me. It's not the play. It's not even the modern setting. Though one has to go some to fit this to the modern world.

It's the naturalistic way it is delivered, which converts, in turn, to drabness. That leads me not to care much about the almost-didn't-happen couplings. Between Claudio (Luke Hunter) and Hero (Jody Larcombe), whose romance is near-derailed by baddy John (Jack Boal); and a second very different will-they/won't-they romance between Benedick (Johnny Lucas), friend to Claudio, and Beatrice (Emma Beth Jones), cousin and best friend to Hero.

These are written by Shakespeare as compare and contrast. The Claudio/Hero romance hinges on Hero being madly in love with Claudio, but too shy to admit to it. Benedick/Beatrice, on t'other hand, is something else. Once an item, Beatrice has been burned by the arrogant Benedick and is now going out of her way to avoid him – and all entanglements. So, the tension here is centred on whether she will relent...and whether there is a way back for the two of them.

There are moments when the principal characters manage to lift the film, but these are few and far between. Shakespeare’s original involves a level of silliness that brings out the comedic side of the characters here. Sadly, Much Ado‘s comedic moments are few and far between – and poorly delivered when they are.

The general seriousness with which the words are approached combined with inconsistent performances are also issue. Because this is a story that, unlike more modern dramas, includes a large cast of broadly interchangeable characters. Add the fact that at various points, this or that character is pretending to be some other person, and it makes the narrative exceedingly hard to follow.

Some nice flashbacks. Some touching musical interludes. Overall, however, Much Ado did not inspire.