Much Ado About Nothing: Oldies at the Old Vic

When: Tuesday 29^th October

Where: Old Vic

Why: Mission to see every version of Much Ado that is produced – ongoing

I sort of can’t be bothered to give this production a scathing review, as somehow I feel like that would be expending energy on something which didn’t give me any energy in the first place. It doesn’t deserve my strong opinion either way.

The twist on this oft-performed play was that the ultimate Shakespearean couple Beatrice and Benedick were played by an older couple – here, the venerable James Earl-Jones (voice of Mufasa, who knew?) and Vanessa Redgrave. I say twist; I think that was the plan, but simply hiring older actors to play the parts and leaving them to it wasn’t really enough, in my opinion. There was much made of this unusual casting in the press, it was meant to be an intriguing new interpretation and a new perspective on a classic – but as far as I could see, it made no difference at all.

Redgrave and JE-J played the roles so straight that I lost all interest before the interval. Almost all the humour in the lines was completely lost due to JE-J simply reading his lines out in a monotone cascade while sat in a chair at the side of the stage (- for variation, sometimes he stood up at the side of the stage, legs splayed, and read out his lines in a monotone cascade). I can’t blame the main couple entirely for the production’s lack of dynamism and humour, but they were an essential part of it, and greatly contributed to my bitter sense of disappointment as I’d been expecting a lot from these greats. Not to mention the fact that this version was directed by the brilliant Mark Rylance, who is unquestionably an acting genius. I saw Rylance’s talk near the start of the run, and although generally fairly interesting, he didn’t seem hugely fired up about the production which I think carried through to the actual performances. It was set in the second world war for “no particular reason”, other than it allowed Rylance to incorporate an all-black regiment from the time, which fitted in nicely with the casting of JE-J. But there was a kind of reserved blankness in Rylance’s talk which disconcerted me at the time, then made total sense when I saw the play. Maybe he already knew it was going to flop.

There are some positives. This was the first version of Much Ado that I’ve seen where the comedy scenes (Dogberry, Verges, the guard) didn’t annoy me beyond belief – and yes, that includes the classic Kenneth Branagh film and the beauteous Eve Best version at the Globe. The guard were played by children which added the only energy to be found in the play and provided an interesting contrast to the elderly couple, and they did it admirably. There was also a brilliant moment with an old gardener doing some epic crazy dancing behind some tedious scene or other. Redgrave had a couple of nice moments of delivery (her voice is captivating), particularly during Beatrice’s softer moments, such as “and then a star danced”. And the music was good.

However. The staging was totally rubbish and a bit bizarre – a large wooden canopy dominated the stage and was impossible to use to good effect. It was all but ignored during the gulling scenes, when it might have been somewhat useful, and it broke up the stage in an unhelpful way. It was used to good effect only during the funeral scene where it created a shroud and some dynamism with Claudio stood on top delivering his eulogy to Hero. The canopy just seemed to always be in the way and was overly modern for a self-proclaimed old fashioned telling of the story. When you’re playing it straight and your two main characters don’t do much other than sit in a chair or stand in one place, maybe a more interesting stage would have helped to lift the mood.

One review has called this version of Much Ado a “misdirected oddity” and I think that’s exactly right. It was baffling because it seemed that no thought or logic had been put into how or why this couple were older and how they fitted in with the rest of the characters. There was little attention to detail and it was lacklustre in a way I haven’t seen since that fateful Lana Del Rey concert.

Disappointed by Rylance, Redgrave and JE-J, and the Old Vic.

Brixpig x