The Stage

Much Ado About Nothing

Published Monday 7 June 2004 at 14:50 by John Thaxter

Josie Lawrence once claimed Beatrice as her favourite Shakespearean part. But for this third Women’s Company staging at the Globe, she plays a Brummie Benedick to Yolanda Vazquez’s bustling Beatrice, perhaps only because she’s an inch or two taller.

The odd thing is that Vazquez, with the vocal energy of an Ethel Merman, seems more suited to the breeches role, while Lawrence, singing her comic song in a light tenor, makes an unassertive Benedick, disappearing among the crowd and screwing up courage to return a comic line.

Costume designer Luca Costigliolo, whose cuts and colours are a constant delight, aids the cross-dressing effect with his pear-shaped outfits for the male toffs, plus abundant whiskers to cover female faces behind smart Vandykes, full beaver or grey, all-concealing shagginess.

The end result is more satisfying than last season’s all-female Richard III and Shrew, perhaps because this is essentially a domestic comedy with no serious swordplay or masculine swagger - a clear storyline with easily identified figures, helped again by Costigliolo’s designs, and Tamara Harvey’s vivid staging technique, the real thing, expressing the power struggle through movement and tableau.

Penelope Beaumont gives a touching performance as the proud then grieving father to Mariah Gale’s fetching young Hero. Ann Ogbomo is a resonant, even sympathetic Claudio and there are lovely comedy asides from Joy Robinson as Hero’s gentlewoman. Rachel Sanders is a reflectively villainous Don John. But the comedy hit of the evening comes from the irrepressible combination of Sarah Woodward’s jobsworth Dogberry and Jules Melvin as the geriatric Verges determined to keep in step, come what may.

Those looking for a lesbian undertow will be disappointed. But when Benedick embraced Beatrice in a passionate kiss at the close, there was a Sapphic whoop of naughty delight from the entire audience.