Set in the world of top-flight football and celebrity culture, where scandal-filled rivalries are the hottest new thing and lads and WAGs collide, Longhurst’s latest reimagining of Much Ado About Nothing is the first production in Tamara Harvey and Daniel Evans second season as Co-Artistic Directors of the RSC.
Gone are the opulent Tuscan villas; in their place, the macho world of a European Cup-winning football team, Messina FC.
The story follows the stubborn lovers Beatrice and Benedick, whose banter and mind games conceal a mutual affection. While the younger couple, Hero and Claudio, are torn apart by societal pressures before finding their way back to each other.
At its heart, this is a story about love, honour, and the perils of reputation – with hypocrisy and misogyny weighing heavy with the personas of footballers’ wives and girlfriends objectifying women.
Mobile phones, social media, bodycams and live-streaming onto big screens replace love letters and rumour in this new contemporary treatment of this Shakespeare play.
Freema Agyeman, who made her RSC debut in Twelfth Night last year, is continuing her remarkable foray into Shakespeare’s canon, returning to Stratford-upon-Avon to play Beatrice. Freema is known for her WhatsOnStage Award winning performance in Romeo and Juliet at the Duke of York Theatre last year. This upcoming role will mark her third Shakespeare production in two years. Her screen credits include New Amsterdam, Dreamland, Sense 8, Dr Who and Torchwood.
The incredible Nick Blood joins her to make his RSC debut as Benedick. Nick was recently in After The End (Stratford East) and joins the cast following a recent SAG nomination for his role in Day of the Jackal (Sky). He is well known for his role as Lance Hunter in Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Other screen credits include Joan, Slow Horses, Andor, Euphoria and Trollied.
Also making his RSC debut is Daniel Adeosun as Claudio. His previous theatre work includes The Comedy of Errors (Globe), Trouble in Mind (National Theatre), The Secret Love Life of Ophelia (Greenwich Theatre) and his screen credits include The Red King, Andor, September 5, The Book of Clarence.
Like the standout talent from a football youth academy, Eleanor Worthington Cox steps back into the very RSC rehearsal room to play Hero, 13 years after her Olivier-Award winning performance as the eponymous role in Matilda The Musical.
Director, Michael Longhurst said: “I’m delighted to be tackling this play for my RSC directing debut with such an amazing company of actors – a premier league of talent indeed! It’s an incredibly exciting time to be directing for the RSC, as part of Daniel Evans and Tamara Harvey’s second season; thanks to Anna Cooper CDG for the assist in selecting the team.
“Much Ado About Nothing is about love: finding and accepting it – but its timeless investigation of masculinity and sex and gender power dynamics in a slander-fuelled plot – felt ripe for exploration in the contemporary setting of topflight football where WAGs and players-behaving-badly can enact a not-so-merry war.”
The introduction of football and modern references into the play’s language, may not sit well with some Bard purists, but, for me, this ingenious reworking was a winner.
Tickets are available from the box office HERE.
Fancy pre-theatre dinner at the RSC Rooftop Restaurant? Check out my review HERE.
