MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING at The Red Lion, SW13

★★★★

“Nicky Diss directs but it feels collaborative and all encompassing”

Coming away from one of Open Bar Theatre’s shows, you can’t suppress the feel-good spring in your step. Nor can the English drizzle dampen your spirits. Clouds, heavy with the first hints of autumn, hang in the air. But so do festoons and lanterns, and the feeling of a summer festival clings to us like the pac-o-macs given out on entry. The audience resembles an end-of-pier coach party, except for the facial expressions. Creased frowns of stoical determination to have a good time are replaced by lines of laughter and joy.

The idea is deceptively simple, and over four hundred years old: Shakespeare can be enjoyed by everyone. ‘Open Bar Theatre’ founders, Nicky Diss and Vicky Gaskin, grasped this concept nearly a decade ago by taking the plays around pub gardens. Their reputation and audiences have been steadily growing until this year they received an Offie’s Special Producing Award. They present theatre how it was originally performed. How Shakespeare should be performed. I’m sure Will would be raising a flagon of ale in celebration of their take on “Much Ado About Nothing”.

It’s a gruelling summer schedule and the six performers work hard, but even at the tail end of this season it doesn’t show. They are having as good a time as us. Playing multiple roles (and a lot of ukuleles) they remain ever faithful to the text but with wonderfully crafted contemporary gestures and ad libs thrown in. References are changed and modernised. Even, at one point, Benedick (Thomas Judd) chastises Shakespeare for not anticipating that his language may feel a touch antiquated four centuries into the future. I mean – come on Will… think ahead!

Set in Messina, the play centres on two couples: Claudio and Hero, and Benedick and Beatrice. An early forerunner to the will-they-won’t-they scenario the play’s comedy stems from secrets and lies and trickery and deception. Benedick and Beatrice are tricked into confessing their love for each other while Claudio is tricked into believing Hero is untrue, two-faced and two-timing. Subplots and wordplay add to the farce, fleshing out the intrigue and the action. Of course, it is all resolved by curtain call, but in the meantime the actors push the comedy to the fore with an ease that keeps our attention throughout, even when wandering to the bar for a top up.

Thomas Judd and Elizabeth Peace, as Benedick and Beatrice, spar mischievously as the bickering pair. From the off, their sharp and cutting dialogue manages to betray the masked affection they have for each other. Peace pitches the delivery just right, empowering herself while still keeping a sense of irony. Doubling up as the villainous Don John, she convincingly switches mood as swiftly as her costume. Judd is a natural performer; quick-witted and with a touch of the MC about him, treating the audience like another member of the cast. On which note, beware! You may be press ganged into becoming a temporary member of the company.

Laura Harling shares Judd’s instinctive, easy rapport with a crowd. A chameleon, she switches from the vibrant and fun-loving Leonato to the suggestive and subversive Margaret, sharing all the jokes with us like we’re old-time drinking partners. Laura Cooper-Jones has a similar, commanding, bon-viveur attitude as Don Pedro. Paula Gilmour’s Hero comes with a subtle touch of shyness. One of the more difficult roles to play, Gilmour manages to give real personality to a woman too often defined by the men that surround her. All the while, Micah Loubon is having fun as her suitor, the fickle and gullible Claudio.

Nicky Diss directs but it feels collaborative and all encompassing. Shakespeare virgins will enjoy this as much as Shakespeare aficionados. Open Bar’s gift is that they brush away any preconceptions some people may have. And what better way to experience it than in a pub garden with a pint of real ale. Just as it should be. Cheers!

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING at The Red Lion, SW13 – then tour continues

Reviewed on 5th September 2024

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Nicky Newman

More reviews from this month:

REBUS: A GAME CALLED MALICE | ★★★ | CAMBRIDGE ARTS THEATRE | September 2024

THE GATES OF KYIV | ★★★★ | THEATRE ROYAL WINDSOR | September 2024

BALLET NIGHTS 006: THE CADOGAN HALL CONCERT | ★★★★ | CADOGAN HALL | September 2024

AN INSPECTOR CALLS | ★★★★ | ALEXANDRA PALACE | September 2024

VITAMIN D | ★★★★ | SOHO THEATRE | September 2024

THE BAND BACK TOGETHER | ★★★★ | ARCOLA THEATRE | September 2024

THE BOYS FROM SYRACUSE | ★★★ | UPSTAIRS AT THE GATEHOUSE | September 2024

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

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★★★★

“a creative, fresh and inspiring approach to Shakespeare’s text”

‘Othello Remixed’ takes the epic tragedy – a story of jealousy and manipulation – and puts it in the centre of young urban culture. Othello is not a warrior, but a boxer, and in the words of its director, the script has “as many ‘fams’ as we do ‘thees’ and ‘thous’”. Darren Raymond, Artistic Director of Intermission Theatre Company and writer (after Shakespeare) and director of the piece, goes on to draw parallels between the rhythms of new language being created by young people and Elizabethan slang. And this parallel is clear in performance. Words from two different eras run together seamlessly. The themes are made shockingly contemporary, and I have never seen an audience laugh so much in a production of Othello.

The cast is made up of graduates from Intermission Theatre’s Youth Theatre who have gone on to professional careers in the industry. Highlights include Kwame Reed as Othello, Iain Gordon as Rico and Micah Loubon as Cassio. Hoda Bentaher delivers a standout performance as Desdemona, supported by Nakeba Buchanan as Emilia in another brilliant performance. Baba Oyejide plays the demanding role of Iago. He takes some time to settle into it but gets stronger over the course of the play excelling as he becomes increasingly more manipulative whilst repeatedly talking about honesty.

There is a little too much movement and comedy in the second act. Having created comedy so successfully in the earlier half of the play, stillness is needed to impress the gravity of the more serious moments. The piece isn’t as hard hitting as it’s Shakespearean counterpart and the edits to the ending take away from the usual impact the final scenes have.

Designed by Catherine Morgan, the set is a detailed study of a boxing studio, the ring in the centre, red and blue, the walls hung with punch bags, gloves and towels. It looks immediately dynamic and bold.

This is a creative, fresh and inspiring approach to Shakespeare’s text that places it slap bang in the modern world, but loses some of the original’s tragic weight.

Reviewed by Amelia Brown

Photography by Richard Jinman

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING at The Red Lion, SW13

★★★★

“Nicky Diss directs but it feels collaborative and all encompassing”

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING at The Red Lion, SW13 – then tour continues

Reviewed on 5th September 2024

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Nicky Newman

More reviews from this month:

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

Omnibus Theatre

Reviewed – 28th June 2019

★★★★

“a creative, fresh and inspiring approach to Shakespeare’s text”

Designed by Catherine Morgan, the set is a detailed study of a boxing studio, the ring in the centre, red and blue, the walls hung with punch bags, gloves and towels. It looks immediately dynamic and bold.

This is a creative, fresh and inspiring approach to Shakespeare’s text that places it slap bang in the modern world, but loses some of the original’s tragic weight.

Reviewed by Amelia Brown

Photography by Richard Jinman

Othello: Remixed

Omnibus Theatre until 14th July

Last tens shows reviewed at this venue: