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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★★★

“The cast is definitely not short of energy and enthusiasm, and, as an audience, that is infectious”

Open Bar have been putting on Shakespeare productions in pub gardens since 2015; their mission statement, clearly set out in the digital programme, is ‘to create fun, clear reinventions of the Bard’s best’ which both ‘Shakespeare aficionados and first timers’ can enjoy. Six actors take on the multiple roles, with all the fast and furious costume changes you’d expect. The text is sprinkled with contemporary references and direct address, and the actors steer the Shakespearian ship with barrels of ‘lets-all-have-a-great-time’ gusto. The cast is definitely not short of energy and enthusiasm, and, as an audience, that is infectious. The problem lies with the fact that frequently the actual play gets lost in the fun.

Given that the rambunctious approach is clearly Open Bar’s brand, The Tempest seems an odd choice. The late plays are all a good deal more cerebral in tone, and The Tempest is no exception, taking on such mighty themes as colonisation and the nature of power and forgiveness; it is also, in many ways, Shakespeare’s examination of his own art, and the power of theatrical magic to transform. Whilst a pub garden on a chilly Autumn night may not be the right place for a deeply political take on the play, there could have been a lot more made of the magic, and, highly skilful though it undoubtedly was, Ariel’s aerial athletics were no substitute for the astonishing conjuring tricks of the language itself. Nicky Diss’s direction relied heavily on Vicky Gaskin’s movement direction, and too often the text was lost in the physicality of the performance. At times, this meant a lack of clarity with regard to plot, and at others, lack of poetry. At no point in the production did ‘the enchanted isle’ genuinely seem a place of wonder.

That said, there were some terrific moments, and some fine performances too. Special mention here to Jessica Alade (Miranda/Antonia) who spoke the verse with subtle poetry and exceptional clarity, and to Adam Courting, who’s Prospero, although perhaps lacking in power, was a highly engaging and charismatic mischief-maker. The Tempest’s comedy duo – Stephano (Thomas Judd) and Trinculo (Nathaniel Curtis) – worked well together, though Trinculo’s mincing campery made somewhat uncomfortable viewing in 2020 and did seem a jarring directorial choice.

Seeing theatre at the moment is a headier and more complex pleasure than in pre-COVID times. The joy of being there at all is, of course, intensified, and it was and is heartening to see so many people swathed in blankets under a September moon to share the experience of live performance. That experience is bitter-sweet however. The Open Bar team worked social distancing and hand sanitising into their production with their trademark rollicking good humour, but there’s no denying that theatre loses an awful lot without touch. Similarly, although we, of course, all need escape and entertainment in these turbulent times, we ignore theatre’s power to help us understand ourselves, and our human predicament, at our peril.

Reviewed by Rebecca Crankshaw

Photography by Headshot Toby

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

Shakespeare in the Garden – The Turk’s Head, Twickenham

Reviewed – 25th September 2020

★★★

“The cast is definitely not short of energy and enthusiasm, and, as an audience, that is infectious”

Reviewed by Rebecca Crankshaw

Photography by Headshot Toby

The Tempest

Fuller’s Shakespeare in the Garden continues at various locations until 1st October. Click on image below for details.

Last ten shows reviewed by Rebecca: