Much Ado About Nothing
Ratings195
Average rating4.2
Much Ado About Nothing is certainly top 5 Shakespeare ever, even if I haven't read enough of them to have a true ability to rank them. I love it nearly as much as I love Hamlet, if for completely different reasons. I will say, though, that this play is very much advantaged by performance; I don't know that I would like it near so much if I had read it without seeing it first. Being a comedy, the parts that are supposed to be funny can come off worse without the comedic sensibilities of whoever performs them. To read it is amusing, but to see it is hilarious. Even still, I love Much Ado.
I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried in thy eyes and also I will go with thee to thy Uncle. MAN...
I was surprised by how much I enjoyed reading this and how well I could actually understand Shakespeare's writing. I remember struggling really hard in high school when we would be assigned to read something by Shakespeare but this time around, I found it so much easier to get through for whatever reason. One thing I really enjoyed about this play were the characters of Beatrice and Benedick, not only because I love a good enemies to lovers trope, but also because they're both hilarious. I did find the story a bit boring and repetitive at times so I only ended up giving it four stars, but I think this would be a good read for somebody who is looking to get out of their comfort zone of reading a little bit. The play is also pretty short so if you're looking for something that you can read through pretty quickly to add another book to your completed list, this could potentially be a good choice for that as well.
I listened to the BBC radio production of this, starring David Tennant as Benedick and Samantha Spiro as Beatrice.
Soooo. The one thing that kinda sucks about Much Ado is that I absorbed Kenneth Branagh's 1993 film version so completely - it is so baked into my cells now - that I cannot NOT hear Kenneth Branagh, Emma Thompson, Robert Sean Leonard, Denzel Washington, and even KEANU in these roles. I realize, also, now, that the reason the 1993 movie version is so baked into my DNA is that that movie is like the Platonic ideal of a Shakespearean adaptation: it's peak Branagh, peak Emma Thompson, peak Tuscany, PEAK ALL OF THEM. They are perfect. And so every other version feels like they're just doing sad/not-so-good impressions of Them. Even David Tennant and his adorable Scottish accent is still like, “ya well Ken is so good tho” OH IDEA HOW ABOUT A SLASH FIC VERSION OF TWO BENEDICKS: KENNETH AND DAVID - WE CAN CALL IT “MUCH ADO ABOUT NOSLASH” Oooh that'd be good.
Anyway, compare:
- David Tennant and Catherine Tate - such a great duo, both of them so good too, in this scene: “Lady Beatrice, have you wept all this while?”
- Now compare the 1993 version of the same scene
I mean, it's like, David Tennant and Catherine Tate are good - great, even - but Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson are PERFECT. They are the Platonic ideal of PERFECT SHAKESPEARE. And this BBC radio version, alas, does not have Catherine Tate. So it's just - okay-to-good.
Anyway, this all reminded me of Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human by Harold Bloom, which I read in high school and deeply informed my understanding of this play, namely:
- That Benedick and Beatrice are actually old flames: Marry, once before he won it of me with false dice... etc etc
- That “nothing” was pronounced “no” “thing” and was slang for vagina!?
- That this play is about marital realism and how Benedick and Beatrice won't live “happily ever after”, but that's fine.
Absolutely wonderful and adorable. This isn't my favourite Shakespearean comedy, but there's plenty of wit and banter present, and a lot of laughs.
(Confession: I think I've seen a staging of this before, but it was my first time reading, and yes, it was in anticipation of the Whedon adaptation).