Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ .5
Edinburgh University Shakespeare Company’s Much Ado About Nothing bursts onto the Pleasance Theatre stage with the pop-rock twang of the Seventies and all the swagger of Mick Jagger. Immediately, the audience is whipped away at breakneck pace to the Sunset Strip, as Producer Leonato brings musicians and marriages together over a backdrop of miscommunication, put together by directorial team Madeleine Brown and Maria Funcasta. This is clearly a team made in Shakespearean comedy heaven, as they bring each element of the show together in what could possibly be the most memorable Edinburgh University stage performance of the academic year.
The show is at its best when it leans into the 1970s of it all; a table laden with decanters sits opposite a record stand, as the characters lounge across a plush magenta couch when they aren’t drinking and dancing. The nonsensical comedy finds its home in the hedonistic setting, as the characters ‘suffer love’ over a music set that includes ‘Roxanne’ and ‘Ballroom Blitz’. The costumes, put together by Paloma Leigh-Stevenson, Bea Fitz and Alex Dunlop, emphasise the gaudy nature of this comparison, as fur coats and leather jackets are taken off to reveal a version of the 1970s laden with heavy jewellery, cowboy boots, and bright colours as far as the eye can see.
Benedict Harrison steals every scene he enters as Benedick, yet still has the first scene he shares with Verity Mann’s Beatrice swept out from under his feet as the two begin a battle of wits that lasts until the curtain drops. The show was sold to me with the phrase ‘Stevie and Lindsay do Shakespeare’; indeed, there was something Nicksian in Beatrice’s spinning in front of the cast in the midst of the show’s sole dance number; yet there was something even more electric about the back-and-forth that the audience is treated to. Harrison’s impassioned performance is met constantly by laughter as he finds comedy in the slightest movement, yet it is Mann who holds the audience in her hand; there are whoops as she kisses Benedick, and enraptured silence mere moments later as she cries out ‘O God, that I were a man! I would eat his heart in the market-place!’
Eric Parker is also a particular standout as Don Pedro, connecting with each actor he stands across from with the same ease as he fills the theatre in each monologue. Daria Claudia and Grace Nason, the make-up team, made the right choice in painting his cheeks in glitter; each action and reaction stands out in a stacked cast of incredible talent.
Perhaps the most ingenious choice in the Shakespeare/Sunset amalgamation is the choice to cast the antagonists of the comedy as a punk band. The head-to-toe black donned by these characters immediately separates them visually from the rest of the cast; it’s done so well that I almost forgive the lack of rips, tears and safety pins involved. The audience was particularly thrilled by the scenes shared by Don John (Cameron Broadly) and Borachio (Fraser Murray), in which there is an immediate comedic duo found as Murray’s take on the latter finds him blustering about centre stage as Broadly slinks behind him. There’s a perfect 1970s microcosm in the brotherhood between Don John and Don Pedro; Broadly is a long-haired Sid Vicious, whereas there’s something Mick Fleetwood-esque about Parker, the long-suffering heart of the show.
The choice to stage a live band as the plot unfolds works especially well; even when they aren’t playing, the musicians are on stage often, immersing themselves in the show and interacting with the characters. Their shining moment is at the close of the first act, as the curtains swing across as they perfectly match the atmosphere of the moment in their performance. The set comes into use here, as they stand on a raised platform, in front of a mountain backdrop. This came into particular use in Act 2, scene 3 as a hiding Benedick is fooled into believing that Beatrice loves him in the most exceptional comedic scene of the play. Rider Hartley comes into his own as a comedic actor in this moment; although he perfects a lovelorn performance as Claudio, his falsetto-ed impression of Beatrice had the audience laughing as much as Benedick’s increasingly frantic attempts to hide.
Despite only appearing for short periods of time in the second half, Robbie Morris and Dylan Kaeuper turn in extremely memorable performances as Dogberry and the Friar respectively. Morris rockets about the stage in the vein of John Lennon on psychedelics, whirling around the cast without missing a mark. Friar, with his Southern accent, seems to be on a trip to California in more ways than one, and immediately becomes the star of the first scene he enters: the wedding. Yet, Francesca Carter’s stellar turn as Hero is still the centre of this moment, as she turns from naïve maiden to the brokenhearted bride in one line: ‘Is it not Hero?’ It’s a stunning moment, as the audience stares on in shocked silence as Hero withers before their eyes. Her return at the close of the play was a vast emotional payoff, expertly handled by Carter.
The performance that I walked away still mulling over was Maria Wollgast as Antonia. The heart of the show is found in the moment that Don Pedro and Claudio are stopped in their tracks by her passionate monologue, an elegant mother driven to grief in the face of the pretense of her daughter dying. Anyone not already familiar with the Shakespearean text may have been shocked, yet this particular representation of what it is to ‘suffer love’ will stick in the minds of many for a long, long time.
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