Much Ado About Nothing is Shakespeare's comedy of 'real' love. The play is set firmly in this world, there is no love at first sight, and no supernatural forces are required to bring about a happy ending. Instead we see love grow over time, then either destroyed or encouraged by deceit, before – finally – it is reconciled and blossoms.

There's a quite base pun in the title and I'll leave it up to you to seek it out! What it does, though, is draw our attention to the premise of this and other comedies – the desire of humans to meet a mate and reproduce within society's prevailing rules of courtship and marriage. When Benedick says: "The world must be peopled," it's almost as if he sees this is as a boring chore, but why should we believe he's different to any other man? Is he, perhaps, deceiving us?

'Men were deceivers ever,' says the play's famous song, and what's certain is that everyone in Messina is in some way deceiving everyone else. Some deceive for malicious reasons, others are benign, some simply deceive for a little fun at a masked ball. The irony of this, however, is that we as audience are over-hearers too, and must use our critical judgement. We remain at the mercy of the playwright and his characters. It would be a mistake to approach this play with one's mind made up, I am certain not everything may be as it at first seems.

There are certainly interesting times ahead during the rehearsal process, and I'm looking forward to it enormously. I am sure it will lead to a very fresh and refreshing production.

Robert F. Ball
Director

Cast

Beatrice		Sam Montgomery
Benedick		James Parsons

Director

Robert F. Ball