Review: Much Ado About Nothing (Royal Shakespeare Theatre, The RSC)

Review by Raphael Kohn

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Of all the possible settings for Shakespearean comedies (and the RSC may well have tried most of them), I can’t say that a football club was at the top of my list of expected ideas. Something about the idea seemed odd. And yet, that’s exactly the setting the RSC has gone for, thanks to the mind of director Michael Longhurst. But would this radical reimagining of Shakespeare’s brilliant comedy be a legendary screamer, or resemble more of an own goal?

To be fair, it’s not the only Much Ado of late. After all, premiering off the back of the Jamie Lloyd-directed, Tom Hiddleston and Hayley Atwell-fronted West End hit was always going to be a challenge. But the text is where the similarities end. Where Lloyd went minimalist, filling the stage with tonnes of confetti and frankly nothing else, Longhurst has gone maximalist, in a production that is all style and some substance to boot.

So, football club it is. It’s a risky concept. We open at the final of the Euro League, as Messina FC takes the cup. Shakespeare’s lines are interspersed with football chants; ‘vaping’, ‘signed’ and ‘manager’ replace the Bard’s original words. Phones are out, and scenes are staged as pundits’ recaps, locker room banter and social media hubbub. It’s nothing if not a clear start, grounding us in Longhurst’s vision from the beginning. 

But then the concept begins to dominate. After yet another football chant, yet another 21st-century reference, the text almost gets obscured by the concept. Characters are introduced, but who are they? We know their in-concept roles of pundits, press photographers and players – their costumes tell us so – but in all of the onstage chaos, their real characters underneath the façade start to disappear. 

Beatrice (a fabulously punchy Freema Agyeman) denounces the idea of marriage and eschews the idea of ever falling in love with Benedick (an equally funny Nick Blood). That makes sense in the play, and at least at the start of the concept, where Beatrice is a sports broadcaster and Benedick is the captain of Messina FC. Their back-and-forth banter is nothing but brilliance, performed tremendously wittily with an unbeatable chemistry between them. Yet, it’s somewhat questionable – is it really that professional for a broadcaster to behave like that with a player? Sure, it can happen, but it comes off odd and confusing, especially when the broadcaster turns up as a guest at the team’s villa.

But when the concept works, it works well. If there’s one thing Longhurst does absolutely perfectly here, it’s his framing of the story within sports to explore toxic masculinity. Think Ted Lasso, but Shakespeare. In this vision, the men’s dominance and toxicity are brought to the fore by the laddish, almost brutish culture within the game and spurred on by the club’s slimy ‘owner’ Leonato (Peter Forbes). Outside the club are the women in their lives, objectified and sidelined. It’s here where Longhurst’s vision truly starts to make sense.

As it develops further, we get deeper into slut-shaming, revenge porn and deepfakes, using the setting to their advantage to really explore these themes through a modern lens. Much of this works best in the hands of Eleanor Worthington-Cox, a remarkable Hero whose portrayal outshines her limited stage time with a nuanced and thoughtful performance. She’s certainly a victim of some of the events of the story, but Worthington-Cox goes beyond this to reinvent Hero as the hero herself, breaking through what holds her back. Not only an actor, she also delivers tremendous vocals singing SuRie’s new music for the play.

And thankfully, the entire thing looks utterly remarkable. Have you ever seen a working jacuzzi onstage in a show? I have. Designed by Jon Bausor (also responsible for the excellent costumes), it’s all high-end materials, with a smooth stone floor and proscenium with a jacuzzi at the centre. Jack Knowles lights it all energetically, while Tal Rosner’s projections line the huge proscenium and appear on large screens on the balcony, popping off with social media notifications and messages. Rosner’s videos also make great use of live video footage, with characters grabbing their phones to capture pivotal moments for social media, broadcasting it live on the screens.

So, not quite ‘Messina’ and not quite ‘messy’ either. At the core of this concept is a genius idea, using the 21st century and celebrity culture to drill down deep into the sidelining of women in Shakespeare’s play. But in all of the extraneous football details which detract from the focus rather than clarifying the ideas, something gets lost. It’s not an own goal by any stretch of the imagination – there are plenty of clever ideas, a gorgeous set to play on and some terrific performances. It’s just not quite the screamer it could be.

Much Ado About Nothing plays at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre until 24th May 2025. Tickets from https://www.rsc.org.uk/much-ado-about-nothing/

Photos by Marc Brenner