FringeReview UK 2026

Much Ado About Nothing

Shakespeare’s Globe

Genre: Classical and Shakespeare, Comedy, LGBT, Mainstream Theatre, Outdoor and Promenade, Theatre

Venue: Shakespeare’s Globe

Festival: FringeReview UK

Low Down

Review

Like a small dancing comet, if not star, Much Ado About Nothing seems to return every two years to Shakespeare’s Globe. It’s now directed by Chelsea Walker (assistant director Charlotte Vickers), known at the Globe for her fine All’s Well That Ends Well in 2024. It plays till October 24 and follows Lucy Bailey’s stunning 2022 reading with its near-tragedy, amplitude and rich set; and Sean Holmes’ full, detailed, inventive traversal of 2024.

The touchstone of a fine Much Ado seems to hang on that astonishing “Kill Claudio” moment. A scene that flips to incandescence and lurches towards tragedy. Bailey’s way puts hers at the top of those I’ve seen. Walker’s two hours 30 version is fleet, clearly-pointed and witty; and resolves the scene convincingly if with a lurch of its own. It breathes in a mercurial air; but exhales poinards (well, daggers here). And as with previous productions, there’s new-minted puns (Gazpacho for Borachio). Led by Pippa Nixon’s sparkling, passionate Beatrice, the whole company seem on point and fly through the play.

In contrast to Bailey’s verdant northern Italy of 1945, and Holmes’ traditional Sicilian Messina drenched with oranges against blue, Sami Fendall’s whitewashed set dazzles Messina. There’s a double staircase used to comic effect and few props. A long thrust stage pushes like a pier out into the groundlings. It’s used with ceremonial panache; particularly in the two wedding scenes: a funereal note before the second of them features a trap door.

Inner animals – full heads and some costumes realised by Robert Allsopp and his team – erupt in the set-piece masked ball with a bull for Benedick, a pink rabbit for Don Pedro. Beatrice at least gets an eagle’s head, and Hero carries a sacrificial lamb’s head. The trope of licence and animalism is heightened yet rather contained. Though it accords with the devouring metaphors Beatrice foists on Benedick. Claudio is a better candidate for Rabbit (though what’s with the 1980s harness?), and I’m not sure Benedick’s inner Bull more than flirts with a red rag. That’s whilst Aline David’s movement direction congas a line-dance within a riot of sly fun.

Elsewhere Fendall’s costumes wash Dolce Vita tints of pink (Beatrice), light service grey (Margaret), lemon and light blues, against stark white. The men’s black/white suits set off dresses which might be 1950s with 1970s beachwear accessories; but equally back into 1930s’ sheeny fabric.

More evocatively, Angus MacRae’s string-led score haunts with a resonant cello trio with guitar and recessed percussion. At one moment lead cellist Maddie Cutter is placed prominently on the thrust, the other musicians remain gallery-bound (with no other action there). The music’s also interrupted and guyed after a single phrase, before settling into a soulful swell. There’s a chromatic shudder for Don John, but the most striking moment is Cutter’s solo cello line over Hero’s grave. It’s in keeping with the Spartan white set.

It’s a mostly young cast too. Characters have been snipped – Antonio rolled into Leonato, Conrade with Borachio, Ursula with Margaret and the Watch slimmed. Jonathan McGuinness’s believable Leonato now exudes hospitality and warmth, anger over Hero, a man willing to challenge his prince and snatch dignity with a flash of his former self.

Matilda Bailes’ buoyant Margaret is built up. Bailes brings zing to her earthy role, has an extraordinary moment when alone on stage: she screams with fury and grief over being fooled by Borachio. Fia Hadeed multi-roles and mostly pops up on the watch too, more or less as a sanity translator.

The brothers, unusually, seem like brothers. Adam Long’s youthful Don Pedro is more laddish than regal and makes a plausible bid for Beatrice himself: and is even more plausibly kin to Claudio’s gullibility. He only contrasts in temper with Joseph Potter’s “plain villain” Don John, dark-knit, bunched-up and smoothly thuggish. Potter stamps him with a smoky, baffled rage. Though he’s so active in a fast-moving plot there’s little time to absorb his motives.

Though Don John notably abuses Marlowe Chan-Reeves’s Borachio, who’s self-delighting in devising his nasty mission. And then kisses him. It’s not developed. Later this Borachio crumbles rapidly, tearful in his remorse. By contrast Geraldine Alexander’s Sister (substituting for Friar Francis) is able to exert real command: her cut-through gravitas pivots the action.

Nixon’s Beatrice stands apart, as seems the rule recently. A born Beatrice, Nixon almost executes ballet pirouettes to underscore her wit: the most physically active Beatrice I’ve seen for a long time. Her every look’s a punchline, every sally exquisitely timed – if delivered at the fastest pace I can remember. Yet capable of tearing passion. Scornful and funny, she’s devastatingly clear too, speeding up when occasion demands it but occasionally reflective, taking time to speak not poinards, but as amended here “daggers”; when poinards were fine in 2022.

There’s poinards struck off Ken Nwosu’s (necessarily) quick-witted Benedick: a role where Benedick normally comes a good second. Nwosu’s clarity mostly equals Nixon, as he keeps up with her headlong pace. In the serious later scenes his burly authority marks him out as a different soldier to impetuous callow Claudio, or the young prince.

Nwosu steals some comic fire in his bewilderment that Beatrice loves him though everything’s accelerated. His micro-pause before “There’s a double meaning in that” is quick-fire but still gets a laugh. He comes into his own with the crowd-pleasing rhyme-hunt, famously “not born under a rhyming planet.” It’s surely a Shakespearean joke, as unusually (following those epic Falstaff monologues in the Henry the Fourth plays) so much of Much Ado is prose.

Both “liming” scenes are brisk, allowing Benedick to dive into an ice-machine (recalling the NT 2022 production) with the usual column-crouching. Such farce is almost outdone by Nixon’s Beatrice sidling up and downstairs. The best moment is Beatrice being drenched by a watering-can as she skulks below a flower-basket.

The electrifying climax of Act IV/1 though is where this comedy overleaps greater ones with a mutually astonished admission of love, and Beatrice’s “Kill Claudio” moment. There’s nothing outside Romeo and Juliet to compare with this tragic intensity. Bailey’s production managed this more than any other production I’ve seen.

Nwosu and particularly Nixon through tears are intense and truthful. They’re playing it straight but as with 2024 (not 2022) the audience still think it’s a comedy and keep laughing because there’s not the pause to prepare us. Then Nixon immediately sets off in a different tone. The coup here is Nwosu’s slicing his hand with his sword in a blood-brothers-style clasp with Beatrice (who’s not required to follow suit). They’re not laughing now. You feel Nixon could make more of Beatrice’s desolation given a chance.

But as with Holmes, audience laughter beforehand shows how Walker hasn’t quite prepared Act IV’s near-tragedy to seep in and high spirits drop. Admittedly it’s incredibly difficult to bring off. Christopher Luscombe’s superb 2014 RSC production (with Michelle Terry and Edward Bennett) still elicited brief laughter. There’s no space, whereas with the Bailey, Beatrice runs off weeping, actually dreading Claudio’s death, despite herself. Hero will be bereft, Benedick forever breaking with his comrades. At this point it should seem it’ll end in tragedy.

Assa Kanouté’s Hero and Joshua John’s Claudio are both as strong as their roles permit. Their union might be the plot’s mainspring but they’re also Gavin and Stacey; a stronger couple always steal the show. Nevertheless, Kanouté’s allowed more vivacity, spirit, time to grow into outrage and playfulness by turns, particularly in the sabotaged marriage scene; and at the end where her Hero briefly punishes Claudio before grabbing him (a raunchiness echoed by Beatrice).

John’s role is here allowed some redemption in tears. But Walker has stripped the text that damns Claudio too: where even after his penance he jokes at the second wedding. He’s sharp enough to make his confirmation of Benedick’s challenge believable. However he’s been duped and however little he yet values women, he’s not the cipher he can be.

Richard Katz’s Dogberry makes a blissfully modulated ass of himself, with some fantastical puns Shakespeare never knew. Walker though ensures these are (not too) briskly dispatched. Os Learse (as a slightly clearer-headed Verges) luxuriates in malapropisms too. They’re redeemed by Kaffe Keating’s lucid Seacoal who clarifies the accusation. As Messenger he’s snogged at the outset by Beatrice as a singular (and improbable) self-dare, odder than the Don John/Boraccio clinch.

Apart from Act IV/I this not only lands in all the right places, it fizzes perhaps more than any Much Ado I’ve seen. Walker and her team allow the words their best flight, with less slapstick and farce and more of the wit that’s surely the play’s hallmark. Those new to it will enjoy its truest gift.

With the comedy it’s mostly a triumph of velocity, of textual intercourse. Only the near-tragedy is missing. Though Beatrice’s star is dancing; and this sorbet is the Globe’s midsummer must-see.

Composer Angus MacRae, Cellos Maddie Cutter, Zosia Jagodzinska, Richard Phillips, Musical Director/ Percussion Zands Duggan Cellos Guitar Charlie Laffer.

ASM Katherine Tippins, DSMs Gemma Scott, Rikki Berg, Stage Management Placement Jurui Yu, Stage Manager Lou Ballard.

Movement Director Aline David, Globe Associate Movement Glynn MacDonald, Costume Supervisor Jackie Orton.  Fight Director Kev McCurdy, Intimacy Director Lucy Fennell.

Head of Voice Tess Dignan, Voice Coach & Text Annemette Verspeak, Wellbeing Lead Brenda Moore-Wait.

Head of Stage Bryan Paterson, Head of Props Emma Hughes, Head of Wigs and Make-Up Gilly Church. Casting Becky Paris CDG, Casting Associate Alice Walters, Production Manager Wills, Deputy Company Manager Kristy Bloxham, Assistant Producer Sharni Lockwood, Producer Cynthia DuBerry.

Published June 24, 2026June 24, 2026 by Simon Jenner