Review: Much Ado About Nothing, Tobacco Factory Theatres

It’s nearly 20 years since I sat in an unprepossessing theatre space on Raleigh Road watching the very first production by Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory (stf). There were more people on the stage performing King Lear than there were in the audience.

But the show was brilliant, and one of the joys of being a theatre critic is that you can tell people about undiscovered gems. I did, and more people came, and the rest is history. And now stf have returned for their 20th season, in front of an audience of whom many had not even been born when that first Lear was staged.

This production does what stf have been doing for most of those 20 years: delivering Shakespeare’s words in a way that makes them totally comprehensible and engaging for a modern audience. There is nothing stilted, precious or ‘Shakespearean’ about the delivery here. The acting style is more akin to contemporary sitcom and television drama, the words delivered as if they had been written last week and not 400 years ago. If Bristol Old Vic’s recent show Pride and Prejudice* (*sort of) [our review] was Jane Austen writing Miranda, this – at least in the first half – is William Shakespeare writing The Inbetweeners.

Louise Mai Newberry as Dogberry and Alex Wilson as Borachio, in Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory’s ‘Much Ado About Nothing’. All pics: Mark Douet

Because Much Ado is definitely a play of two halves. Before the interval we have a knockabout romantic comedy, featuring a sparkling display of Elizabethan ‘wit’ between Beatrice (Dorothea Myer-Bennett) and Benedick (Geoffrey Lumb), which is actually funny in this production – as it should be in the 21st century where banter is a sine qua non for male/female interaction.

But in the second half things get much darker, as Hero (Hannah Bristow) is mistakenly slutshamed at the altar by her betrothed Claudio (Imran Momen), thanks to the malevolent manipulations of Don Jon (Georgia Frost). It might be classified as a comedy, and it certainly has a happy ending, but there’s some bleak stuff to get through en route.

Imran Momen (Claudio) and Hannah Bristow (Hero)

Performances across the board are strong – although Louise Mai Newberry could perhaps tone down the gurning: there is more than enough comedy in Dogsberry’s malapropic lines without the need for cartoonish exaggeration.  As Hero’s father Leonato, Christopher Bianchi’s heart-rending denunciation of his shamed daughter may seem totally inappropriate to a modern audience, but his anguish and paternal love can nonetheless move audience members to tears. Geoffrey Lumb has a firm grasp on Benedick’s comic characteristics: a man totally outplayed in the banter stakes by Beatrice, a dreamer with a outer coating of machismo that flakes all too quickly in the heat of verbal jousting.

Bethan Mary James (Margaret) and Alex Wilson (Borachio)

But the two stand-out performances come from Dorothea Myer-Bennett and Zachary Powell (Don Pedro). Whilst the rest of the cast present characters – and present them very well – these two actors present real people. There is a tangibility to Don Pedro in which you feel his backstory as a general and leader of men. He’s a man you’d like to have a pint with.

Myer-Bennett’s Beatrice is a red-headed whirlwind who effortlessly dominates the stage every moment that she’s on it, whether she’s delivering perfect comic timing or powerful anger. Her “I wish I were a man” speech sizzles with all the fury of female repression, and her delivery is pitch-perfect in everything she does.

Dorothea Myer-Bennett as Beatrice and Geoffrey Lumb as Benedick

Director Elizabeth Freestone has succeeded in fulfilling the stf brief: to allow Shakespeare to speak to a contemporary audience without gimmicks, ‘concepts’ or false reverence for canonical works. To deliver a piece of theatre that makes you laugh and cry just as the author intended.

This Much Ado is a true delight and – like so many stf productions – will hopefully show people that Shakespeare really can be just as spellbinding to a modern audience as any high quality Hollywood blockbuster. Go and see it.

Much Ado About Nothing continues at Tobacco Factory Theatres until Saturday, November 9. For more info and to book tickets, visit www.tobaccofactorytheatres.com/shows/much-ado-about-nothing-by-william-shakespeare

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