 | Much Ado About Nothing |  |
"What, my dear Lady Disdain! are you yet living?" Act I, scene i
Written: 1599
Pirate Utopia ; November 15, 2006 Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, UK
Starring :
Reviewed on : 2006-11-20 16:02:37 ; Reviewed by : Helen Prior
| Formed back in 2002, Pirate Utopia have attracted attention around their base in the East of England for blending modern technology into their performances. Initially part of a joint project between the Norwich Arts Centre, two Norwich schools and themselves, their production of Much Ado About Nothing was designed to interest young people in attending the theatre through the use of technology. Not quite knowing what to expect from an evening of interactive Shakespeare, and given that this work of the Bards’ was my all-time favourite, I found I was pleasantly surprised by the experience.
Operating under the premise that we were going to see a live television production of “Down With Love”, a weekly debate show filmed in a Pedro Productions studio, we found that all those involved in the production were characters within the play and were ‘in character’ from the moment we entered the theatre. This did mean that it wasn’t entirely clear exactly when the play began, but it did put the audience more at ease with what was about to happen.
Every attendee was given a sheet of instructions, and Ursula, the assistant floor manager (played by Panda Monium - also the producer and director of the show), explained to us about text voting and how at times the show’s stars would come into the audience to get people’s opinions on what was going on. All of this added to the feel of being in a live television audience.
The arrival of Benedick (Mark David Nash) and Beatrice (Gill Dean) was done in the same vein, as our two hosts preparing for the start of their show, with Benedick moving amongst the audience asking questions and generally warming people up. As he moved back to the ‘studio’ he uttered the immortal words “What, my dear Lady Disdain! are you yet living?”
The mixture of modern script and Shakespeare’s original verse flowed very well into each other, and although the entirety of the original work was not used, the key moments of the play were all present. The use of TV screens to show communication with other characters was a nice touch - such as between Don John (Leighton Williams) and Borachio (Steve Stigwood), or when the two reluctant lovers are duped by their friends, or to show secret footage of the tryst between Hero (Jessamy Selwyn) and Borachio - and kept in fitting with the modern feel of the play.
The high point of the production for me was the relationship generated between Benedick and Beatrice. The two actors were very at ease with each other, and their relationship and its development was believable. Leighton Williams was suitably evil as Don John, and Tom Butterworth made an excellent Claudio, with all the insipidness required of the almost jilted lover.
Even when the play changed tone, at the accusation of Hero’s infidelity, it did not suffer with the transition between the original text (used for the duration of her ordeal) and the modern changes the company had made (in the audience’s condemnation of the three accusers).
Some minor points were that a few of the speeches were a bit on the rushed side and there were a few trips over some of the words but nothing that impacted negatively on the overall performance. My own minor bugbear simply came from the fact that due to it not being a typical production of Much Ado, some of my favourite pieces were cut from the finished show, and the running time was a little short, coming up on just over an hour. However, I understand that this show was designed to engage young people, and therefore that was why the changes had been made. As an introduction to Shakespeare, the production was very good. If you hadn’t read or seen the original play, there was more than enough of the story there for it to be recognisable as Shakespeare, and you could easily go and see a full production of the play and know what was going on.
The use of audience participation and modern technology and speech made for good interactive Shakespeare and certainly achieved what the company had intended: the feel of Shakespeare as it was originally presented, but in a modern forum.
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Sir John Gilbert, R.A.,
Beatrice and Benedick
Reviews
|  | Royal Shakespeare Company
November 3, 2009 |  | British Shakespeare Company
July 31, 2009 |  | OVO at The Maltings Arts Theatre
June 25, 2009 |  | Regents Park Open Air Theatre
June 1, 2009 |  | Lord Chamberlain’s Men
July 2, 2008 |  | Stadttheater Bern
April 12, 2008 |  | Wide Eyed Productions
March 2, 2008 |  | Redshift Theatre at UH Arts
October 17, 2007 | | Pirate Utopia
November 15, 2006 |  | Stratford Festival of Canada
August 3, 2006 |  | Royal Shakespeare Company
May 22, 2006 |  | Chicago Shakespeare Theatre
December 19, 2005 |  | BBC TV
November 7, 2005 |  | Signal Ensemble Theatre
August 23, 2003 |  | Spandauer Sommerfestspiele
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