Much Ado About Nothing: A gloriously giddy staging – with dad dancing from Tom Hiddleston

Telegraph

20-02-2025

This is more like it. After the wash-out of Jamie Lloyd's production of The Tempest, botching the grand return of Shakespeare to the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, comes a bonkers but brilliantly inventive Much Ado that gives us (and Lloyd) something to smile about, providing a much-needed blast of fun and pop-saturated theatrical sun. Where Sigourney Weaver flopped as Prospero, Hayley Atwell and Tom Hiddleston have fans queuing for the stage door, not just because of their A-list allure (they're Marvel names, both) but because they're an assured hoot as Beatrice and Benedick.
True to form, Lloyd isn't giving us a traditional re-tread of the Messina-set rom-com. There's his standard use of headset mics to amplify the actors, and his customary stripping of the mise-en-scene to the barest essentials; in contrast to the deluxe auditorium, we see the vast, unadorned space.
But far from seeming cheerless, and déjà vu, the approach proves a fresh, unbounded joy. Freeing the action from studious naturalism, and ersatz social context, it's a teasing provocation, with loud klaxon honks jolting us too. The boldest stroke (design: Soutra Gilmour) is a sustained shower of pink confetti. It's faintly magical to behold, offsetting plastic chairs below; on another level, it chimes with the play's tragicomic mix of autumnal wistfulness – these stand-offish rivals in wit are almost at last-chance saloon – and amorous adventure.
That suggests that Lloyd has the thoughtful measure of the work but rather than impose his vision to an inhibiting degree, he trusts his crack cast to deliver the loose-limbed interplay. There are gimmicks galore but there's a knowingness to them that augments the feel-good energy and ensures that sincerity cuts through the image-conscious facades when it counts.
Atwell is at first sedentary and svelte in a brown jump-suit – a seen-it-all Beatrice, dispensing put-downs at the expense of Hiddleston's smugly assured charmer, who arrives with fellow booty-shaking entourage to the riotous sound of the Beastie Boys' Fight for Your Right (To Party!). Though stylish, too, in dark blue trousers and shirt, offset by a garish, glittery belt, he's pure peacock, prone to thumbs-up gestures and conspiratorial winks ('I am loved of all ladies' is purred to the honey-voiced hilt).
Hiddleston's game surrender to the carnivalesque spirit of the brisk night contributes to a rising, almost hysterical sense of OTT pleasure – we get cringe disco moves, attempted break-dancing, risible singing, even a flash of his six-pack. Hell, there's also a modicum ado about a card-board cut-out of Loki (there's a matching one of Atwell as Agent Carter too).
The gulling sequence is as funny as any I've seen, Hiddleston straining to hide himself in confetti, madly rolling upstage then getting submerged beneath a giant inflatable love-heart. That Atwell insinuates deep, dormant wounds at her own duping, and real pain at Hero's nuptial jilting by the air-headed Claudio, attests to top-tier talent. Lloyd outrageously ditches the tricky Dogberry and co carry-on, truncating the second half, but by this point, and definitely come the moment B&B clinch for some smooching TLC, you're too smitten to fret.