![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Much Ado About Nothing
Feb. 11th, 2025 02:36 pmLast night, we went to see Tom Hiddleston and Hayley Atwell in Much Ado About Nothing at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane - and it was the most ridiculous Shakespeare adaptation I've ever seen - in the best possible way.
While we were waiting for it to start, we were bombarded by disco music and noticed several disco balls hanging around the curtain...
And yes, it was a disco version of the play - sort of...
There was no set, apart from ten plastic chairs, a trestle table, and a giant inflatable heart - oh, and the most pink confetti I've ever seen in my life...
All ten of the cast were on stage for most of the production, and they would move to various parts of the stage and sit on one of the chairs to indicate they were 'out of scene'.
There was excellent singing (from Mason Alexander Park), terrible dancing (from all of the cast, though I think Tom Hiddleston threw himself into it the most), hilariously bad hiding, very effective both over- and under-acting, and tremendous enthusiasm and obvious enjoyment from all involved.
It was hysterically funny and also very affecting - gloriously silly and very clever.
Much Ado About Nothing is my favourite Shakespeare play, and it takes a lot to match the Kenneth Branagh version, in my view, but this version was very good.
While we were waiting for it to start, we were bombarded by disco music and noticed several disco balls hanging around the curtain...
And yes, it was a disco version of the play - sort of...
There was no set, apart from ten plastic chairs, a trestle table, and a giant inflatable heart - oh, and the most pink confetti I've ever seen in my life...
All ten of the cast were on stage for most of the production, and they would move to various parts of the stage and sit on one of the chairs to indicate they were 'out of scene'.
There was excellent singing (from Mason Alexander Park), terrible dancing (from all of the cast, though I think Tom Hiddleston threw himself into it the most), hilariously bad hiding, very effective both over- and under-acting, and tremendous enthusiasm and obvious enjoyment from all involved.
It was hysterically funny and also very affecting - gloriously silly and very clever.
Much Ado About Nothing is my favourite Shakespeare play, and it takes a lot to match the Kenneth Branagh version, in my view, but this version was very good.
