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

Click here to see our Recommended Shows page

★★★★

“the cast are masterful at multi-roling and eking out the comic potential”

Lockdown appears to be easing in many walks of life, but it is unfortunate that the theatre world, in particular, is still struggling to get back on its feet. The government announcement allowing indoor events is very welcome although there is still a fair bit of ground to cover. In the meantime, open-air theatre is stealing the spotlight, and a very fine example of this is the Maltings Open Air Theatre Festival, set in the unique Roman Theatre of Verulamium just on the edge of St Albans. As part of the festival, Shakespeare’s “Henry V” is running in rep throughout August.

Whilst our theatres are nursing their wounds from the battle against the pandemic, outdoor theatre has another foe, too, in the English weather; and “Henry V” opened just as the heavens did. But mercifully the downpours showed some restraint for the crucial ninety minutes and rain didn’t stop play: the show must go on, and the true spirit of the cast thrives, matching the trumpet calls that herald Shakespeare’s historical text.

“Henry V” is an ambitious play. It is difficult to represent the great battles of Harfleur and, more importantly, of Agincourt. It relies heavily on the collective imagination of the audience, and here it is aided too by the individual imagination of director, Matthew Parker. Embracing the current restrictions, Parker presents the play as a rehearsal for a school production. The teachers and students have gathered together in the summer holidays to rework their production of “Henry V” that was presumably curtailed earlier in the school year. They have to alter the staging to make it socially distant and safe. Costumes can only be touched by the actor wearing them and no-one can share a prop – each cast member assigned different coloured tape to enforce this. The action is interrupted whenever actors get too close to each other. It is a clever way if incorporating the regulations into the performance itself.

The cast brilliantly capture the atmosphere of the classroom in recess where familiarity and authority have license to flirt with one another. The flipside, however, is that one is drawn to these characters more than to the Shakespearian characters they are portraying, and Shakespeare’s text plays second fiddle. The complexities of the subject, and the contrasting views on patriotism and warfare, do get swept aside by the occasional over-projection and caricature. Nevertheless, the cast are masterful at multi-roling and eking out the comic potential. Felipe Pacheco and James Keningale stand out, playing seven or so characters between them; and Rachel Fenwick shines as the French King’s daughter, Katherine, especially during the iconic scene in which she attempts to improve her English.

But all in all, it is an ensemble piece that is refreshingly pacey and fizzes with energy. The electricity that seems to crackle form the stage is not just the early signs of the impending thunderstorm. The setting is stunning: an excavated Roman amphitheatre that is nearly two thousand years old. For over a millennia it was buried, but it lives to see the light of day. A fitting backdrop for one of the first productions to emerge since lockdown. The spirit of theatre cannot be dampened – by an invisible enemy nor by the English weather, and this feisty production of Henry V is testament to that spirit.

Reviewed by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Laura Harling

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

The Maltings Open Air Festival

Reviewed – 15th August 2020

★★★★

“the cast are masterful at multi-roling and eking out the comic potential”

Reviewed by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Laura Harling

Henry V

The Maltings Open Air Festival until 31st August

Last ten shows reviewed by Jonathan: