'Much Ado About Nothing' review

The latest performance from the Melbourne Theatre Company, of William Shakespeare's enemies-to-lovers ultimate comedy.

This week, I had the great joy of seeing the Mark Wilson directed, Much Ado About Nothing with my good friend and theatre-goer, Kevin.

Beatrice and Benedick are the most modern of Shakespeare’s couples. They have history. They love to hate each other, yet everyone around them knows they’re perfect for each other. Can love really conquer all?

This is my favourite of Shakespeare’s comedies, hands-down - and it’s mostly to do with the fact that Beatrice is up there with Lady Macbeth, as my favourite of the Bard’s women. I love this play so much, but the last time I saw it performed live was October 2017 when the “pop-up Globe” came to Melbourne and it was so much fun, but I was indeed long-overdue a live-performance.

I do also love the many adaptations of Much Ado, most notably the 1993 Kenneth Branagh-directed and starring his then-wife, the indomitable Emma Thompson (who is always the bar for me, on Beatrice’s). But, heck, I was even partial to Joss Whedon’s (yes, I know) 2012 contemporary offering. Perhaps my favourite though is the recording of a 2011 stage-performance featuring David Tennant as Benedick and Catherine Tate as Beatrice (this was huge at the time, because Tate had left David’s Tenth Doctor in Doctor Who in 2008, so this was their big reunion and their casting was perfection).

Melbourne Theatre Company 2025

I loved MTC’s 2025 production, directed by Mark Wilson. As Anne-Louise Sarks -Artistic Director & Co-CEO of MTC - notes in her introduction to the program;

In this new production, Director Mark Wilson – known for his radical Shakespeare adaptations – finds the point where comedy meets cruelty. The world in which the original was written may be centuries old, but its tensions between gender, trust, power and public perception still feel unnervingly familiar. When choosing the stories we share with you, we’re drawn to works that reflect the human experience in all its flaws and contradictions, whether it’s a new play or an enduring classic like this one.

Wilson’s play is set in some unspecified contemporary time-period (though the Act 2 masked ball features the characters in cheap 16th century costumes in a nice head-nod). The set by designer Anna Cordingly was very striking upon entry, and while I clocked that the image projected on a blue-background was Pamela Anderson circa Baywatch, it’s thanks to this Theatre First review that I understand the background and wink-wink of its significance;

There’s a house near Albert Park Lake in Melbourne that is famous for its famous façade – the face of Pamela Anderson. It was built in 2000 by ex-footballer Sam Newman to the aggravation of his neighbours; he sold it two years later, having never lived in it. It has changed hands several times over twenty-five years, but the image of Anderson remains: billboard-sized and frozen in her image as Baywatch star of the 1990s.

Suddenly that set decision makes perfect sense, and is another layer of commentary on gender-norms and subversions in the play. Brilliant!

It’s as striking on stage as it is in reality, because of Anderson’s face, of course, but also because it captures the wealth that surrounds the characters of the play – and it’s an icon of celebrity and unexamined misogyny.

It was also a really interesting set decision to allow the audience to see *everything* of the behind-the-scenes; lighting rigs and costume racks, props and at various points you actually see actors off to the side and changing into different robes for the multiple characters they play on stage … in a few really fascinating moments, backstage crew take centre-stage to help the actors with more complicated costume-changes.

I thought it was really interesting (but never distracting) to let the audience see all the backstage machinations. It gives the impression of the crew working like servants, maids and butlers to these wealthy characters - a very upstairs/downstairs vibe that fills out the impression that these are rich and idle individuals without having to display pure-opulence … it’s more the suggestion that gets the point across.

The actors did a truly marvellous job too - Fayssal Bazzi and Alison Bell play Benedick and Beatrice and they were outstanding. I particularly loved that Bazzi played Benedick a little more harmless and goofy, but Alison Bell maintained Beatrice’s cuts and razor-sharp barbs - even as her physical comedy (something I knew she excelled at, because I loved her in ABC series The Letdown) lets her show a slight softening.

The rest of the cast had a really hard job before them, because they all played 2-3 additional and minor characters. Miela Anich for instance, plays Hero/Borachio/Ensemble - and this was a particularly interesting feat when she’s opposite Chanella Macri who plays Margaret/Bastard/Ensemble and the two of them are acting out a very raunchy balcony scene as Borachio and Margaret (in my mind this made total sense though, if any onlookers were to squint and think Borachio resembled Hero, perhaps?). I really loved seeing Macri in this role, because I’d last had the honour of seeing her at the Malthouse in the theatre adaptation of Melina Marchetta’s Looking for Alibrandi!

Julie Forsyth was spectacular as Ursula/Dogberry/Ensemble (particularly the friar) she almost had a Monty Python quality to her performances.

But I was really impressed with John Shearman’s portrayal of the Prince - Don Pedro. In the Kenneth Branagh adaptation, Denzel Washington plays the Prince and while I love him, I always find that he brings too much nobility and gravitas to the role.

Shearman and Wilson’s interpretation is perhaps the one time Don Pedro’s character has made so much sense to me; with Shearman playing him as a bothersome, entitled and insufferable wanker. He is the Andrew Mountbatten Windsor of Aragon. When Benedick and Claudio arrived with him, all three dressed in their Australian military combat fatigues - Don Pedro is sporting wanky wraparound sunglasses, and it’s not long before he’s got two bottles of booze in hand. He exudes nepo-baby uselessness, and I loved how they emphasised his playing cupid as pure meddling and creep behaviour (at the masked-ball he does an unnervingly good job of a behind-hug on Hero, that has her gently extracting herself to go and stand beside Claudio instead, in a move that spoke volumes to any woman watching). Shearman’s Don Pedro swaggers around the stage in a speedo and is always a little too loose and swaying, giving the impression of Australians on schoolies in Bali. He was perfect.

I really loved this production, and now I’m keen to see more Shakespeare from Mark Wilson - I really loved his interpretation and vision. Fayssal Bazzi and Alison Bell reiterated for me just why Beatrice and Benedick are my favourite couple from Shakespeare’s works (truly, keep your Romeo & Juliet - it’s the enemies-to-lovers trope for me!)

Below is a wall at MTC, encouraging fans to share their experience and secrets, and I took a snap of some of my favourites;