Proximity to tragedy just adds depth

MUCH Ado About Nothing is one of the great Shakespearean comedies. The fiery exchanges between Beatrice and Benedick led their conniving family and friends to think it would be a great joke to set them up.

The delightfully manufactured overheard conversations create genuinely hilarious reactions. Underneath the goodnatured plotting of Leonato and his kin is the much darker malicious plotting of Don Jane. The plot does come perilously close to becoming tragedy but this just serves to give the play more depth.

The Globe Theatre’s 2017 offering is set in a vaguely journalistic office. This adds interesting elements of the complexities of work place relationships and ambitions to the already intricate interconnections between the characters.

Director Dale Neill has worked with a huge cast to bring out as much of the fantastic characters as he can. Laura Wells is wonderful as Beatrice. She plays a jaded woman who blooms with colour as she lets love into her heart. Thomas Makinson plays a jolly hockeysticks version of Benedick. He is most comfortable when he is clowning and playing up the script for laughs.

Jerome Rouse has nice subtle touches as the kindly and misled Don Pedro. Sofie Welvaert slinks across the stage as a snakelike, vicious and utterly fabulous Jane the Bastard. Ashley Stewart gives a strong performance as Claudio as the kind of nice young man whose easygoing manners are only a thin veneer over vast jealousy and rage. Hero is the sweetly innocent Bonnie Stewart.

Other characters worth giving up your nice sunny evening for are Oscar Macdonald’s variety of characters and the bumbling fools who accidentally save the day: Dogberry and his men. Emmett Hardie, Vincent Batt and Sam Ogden are the kind of security guards you would never leave your keys with.