Film Review - NT Live: Much Ado About Nothing
Images courtesy of Sharmill Films.
Much Ado About Nothing, unlike the name suggests, actually packages up quite a few happenings before recounting them in a kaleidoscopic stage that seems to have a dozen or two aces tucked up its sleeve.
That’s a loaded review, and I’d be satisfied to leave it at that, but the word count’s 400 and we’d be a Twitter page if our opinions were 140 characters or less so let’s ponder why it is that much to do with nothing takes place over the course of roughly three hours (intermission included) and yet, almost in spite of this, audiences remain entertained. I think it’s something to do with the beautiful mundanity of life and our own unique experiences in its ocean. There could’ve been other stories to tell, perhaps of the war that our boys, Claudio and Benedick, have just come back from as the play opens, or the love triangle of a tycoon with a daughter to wed off. Neither of these plots interest the purveyors of this narrative, a long line of stagewrites with this incarnation lending its license for director, Kirk Acevedo, with clumsy doofus, Benedick, and pompous egomaniac Beatrice, making for a marvellous case study of the absolute worst way to court the opposite sex. Both are as uniquely stunted as the other, as their frustrating lack of anything resembling progression holds back the tide of boredom and instead opens up the Pandora’s box of appreciation I began falling into with the craftsmanship of this plot.
Just like love, when I was actively seeking out the plot, I could not find it. I’d attach myself to fleeting character development or a budding romance, only for the focus to slowly draw my sights back to either Beatrice or Benedick, dawdling in the background in search of meaning. It’s endearing, and despite the more interesting stories that could’ve been told in its place, I began to fall for the couple. Obviously, this swooning is greatly enhanced and abated by the sublime acting of all onstage, even when scene-stealer Claudio rears his cockney mug. But that doesn’t detract from the fact that I walked out of Much Ado About Nothing with a deeper understanding of connection and intimacy - something that I’m sure my future lover, lost out there in the cold world, all alone - will truly appreciate, as I blunder towards them with great clumsiness and a deep lack of empathy, just like Benedick.
NT Live: Much Ado About Nothing is screening in cinemas from Saturday December 3rd. For tickets and more info, click here.