Much Ado About Nothing

Published Monday 9 June 2008 at 12:10 by Jeremy Brien

A clutch of critics and scholars consider Beatrice to be the finest female role in Shakespeare. So it is a bold move by the Festival Players to choose her battle of wits with Benedict for their fourth open air touring production on the run to employ an all-male cast.

To their good fortune, company newcomer Jack Cassidy brings a delightful sense of mischief to a role that has challenged every famous Shakespearean actress from Ellen Terry to Emma Thompson. His verbal sparring with David Lee-Jones’ Benedict is full of lightness and merriment, emphasised by a quite splendid control of his eyebrows. Lee-Jones played Rosalind for the company last year, so it is no surprise that he is particularly adept at capturing Benedict’s lovelorn period, as well as what seems from the start to be a feigned irritation with the opposite sex.

Director Michael Dyer has again commissioned an attractive original score by Cotswold singer/songwriter Johnny Coppin. This underlines a light-hearted approach well suited to a summer’s night. It does, though, slightly mask the darker side of the exploration of Sicily’s cruel and rigid social code. Both Christopher Mark’s Claudio and Alan Christopher’s Don Pedro appear rather more noble than their brutal rejection of Tom Giles’ gentle Hero might suggest. However, the comic Watchmen scenes, built around Ned Finlay’s puffed-up, yet bewildered Dogberry, strike just the right note.