Much Ado About Nothing

Recently I went to Stratford-Upon-Avon for a few days to have a look around the area and see ‘Love’s Labour’s Won (Much Ado About Nothing).’ The production was put on by the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC).

Before the show, I’d gone on a guided tour around the area and seen places such as Shakespeare’s birthplace and where he was buried. This put me in the mood, and there is a surprising amount of interesting history surrounding the area.

I didn’t know much at all about the play before I went, but Shakespeare’s ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ is about love and marriage, being humorous and light-hearted as it is a comedy, and there are no deaths which is always nice.

The main part of the plot focuses on Benedick and Beatrice being tricked into falling in love with each other, thinking that the other loves them and is too shy/embarrassed to admit it. The scenes where they overheard deliberately staged conversations about them by the other characters were incredibly funny, and Benedick and Beatrice reacted in humorous ways which had the whole audience laughing.

Claudio and Hero are the other main focus, as Claudio is in love with Hero but is tricked into believing that she is unfaithful. You take a disliking to Claudio here for being a fool and being rude to Hero, refusing to marry her. Nevertheless the problems are resolved at the end, and who doesn’t like a happy ending?

The sets were brilliant, and they included a Christmas theme, which was nice as it was only a few days before Christmas (also being suitable because of the month the war ended). Towards the end, there was a slight problem with one of the sets as it stopped working and didn’t go into the floor properly, so there was a short break while it was fixed. This didn’t really matter though, and the show was brilliant.

The actors were convincing and well suited to their roles, and the music accompanying it was beautiful and also Christmassy in places. Different moods and feelings of the characters were portrayed brilliantly.

This play was the second of two plays (‘Love’s Labour’s Lost’ and ‘Love’s Labour’s Won’). I feel as though it would have been good to have seen all of them as they include the same actors and it would be interesting to see more development of the characters.

Spine, a play

Recently I went to see a play at the Soho Theatre, London, of ‘Spine.’ It had become popular at the Edinburgh Fringe, so I was interested to see what it was about and why it was so popular.

I didn’t know much about it before I went and so wasn’t sure to expect. The layout of it was very interesting, as it consisted of only one actress, Rosie Wyatt playing Amy, who also dictated the words of an old woman, Glenda, in a slightly different voice.

The minimal staging and background means that you only really focus on the words of the character as she tells the story and recalls her conversations with Glenda and other friends. The relationship between Amy and Glenda is interesting, as Amy helps to clean out Glenda’s house whilst Glenda encourages her to read and they recite random facts and information to each other.

We find that the heaps of books standing in piles on the stage were stolen by Glenda from her local library which was closing down due to cuts, as she took them in the hope to put them to use in a library  at some point in the future. This setting of Glenda’s house is the main setting of the storyline, and it was surprisingly amusing and engaging hearing about the conversations between the two characters.

I must admit that this play was nothing like anything I could have expected, instead being like a narration and lasting only for an hour, but it was very entertaining and I was hugely impressed at the acting – how is it possible to learn a whole play, not leaving the stage at all, reciting it in an engaging way? I love how modern and unusual it was and would definitely recommend it.

Richard II

A couple of weeks ago I went to see a Shakespeare play, ‘Richard II,’ at the Barbican, arranged by the Royal Shakespeare Company, not really because I wanted to see the play but mainly to see David Tennant on stage and to have the opportunity to see him with my own eyes. My sister and I had thought about going for a while but not booked tickets, and then the tickets sold out just as we were about to buy them. Typical. Luckily on the day we discovered the website StubHub which allows fans to sell on and buy tickets, so we purchased tickets for the last show a few hours before the show started and collected the tickets from one of their collection points in London on the way to the play.

As we were waiting for the play to start, we wandered around outside and looked at some of the costumes which were on display and have been used in various plays in the past, and some of them are amazing as to how much detail they include.

I had read up about the plot prior to watching the play, so I knew what was going to happen, as some plays can be difficult to follow. The play, despite not being quite my thing as it’s historical, was very well done and the acting was great. Also, I got to see David Tennant (playing Richard II) with his long hair extensions. What could be better than that? I genuinely think he looks good with long hair, although talking to other people I seem to be the only person with that opinion.

The play was scattered with areas of humour to make it more enjoyable. It was a pretty good play and I can say that I enjoyed it more than I thought I would, but it didn’t help that I was really tired. There were a few mistakes in the play which weren’t noticeable and were cleverly covered up and moved on from. I only found out that they were genuine mistakes from this website after watching it.

After the play, we went outside and rushed to the stage door, hoping to meet David Tennant. Unfortunately there were signs which read, “Owing to final night RSC commitments, Mr Tennant will be unable to sign this evening.” Now that was disappointing, as although I hadn’t expected to meet him there was a chance that I would and people from the plays on previous days had posted pictures on Twitter which had somewhat got my hopes up. Although I recognised a couple of other actors, I’m not really a fan of them so decided that I might as well leave. Even though I didn’t get to meed David Tennant I did get to watch him act on stage and he was really good, so that’s just as good really.