A Taylor Swift soundtrack, a wheelie-bin and Converse trainers root this current production of Much Ado About Nothing by Oxford Theatre Guild firmly in the present day. Which is fine in my book – and a brave attempt by OTG to ask in what way is this play relevant to our times?
Much Ado is a quirky tale of two couples – Beatrice and Benedick; Hero and Claudio – and how they eventually get together after meddling friends and foes are either trying to bring them together or force them apart.
All credit to the OTG cast for successfully conveying the humorous moments of the play: Catherine McCosker’s intentionally wooden performance as Ursula in the staged, not-so-secret chat with Beatrice; Gary Bloom‘s naively cretinous police-chief Dogberry; Marcus Davis-Orrom‘s slapstick, hiding in the aforementioned wheelie-bin and Vaughn Pierce as Don Pedro giving us his best Stephen Fry (!).
However, not all is fun and frolics: Manipulating, spiteful Don John (convincingly played by Helen Dallas) all too easily convinces almost the entire court of Messina as he lies about the fidelity of bride-to-be Hero.
And it is here, where the OTG and Shakespeare really combine to make us, the audience, consider poor Hero’s plight in terms of our modern-day society’s treatment of women – how much has or hasn’t changed over the last 400 years since the Bard first staged this play?
Impressively staged in Oxford’s idyllic University Parks, this production successfully delivers laughs and romance to this thought-provoking Shakespeare comedy.
Edward Bliss
OTG’s Much Ado About Nothing runs at University Parks daily (except Sunday) until July 27. Book here https://www.ticketsoxford.com/events/much-ado-about-nothing
