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The Arts Intel Report

A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler
A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler

Much Ado About Nothing

The company in Much Ado About Nothing.

July 16 – Aug 24, 2024
21 New Globe Walk, London SE1 9DT, UK

The plays of Shakespeare are springboards for endless experiment. For instance, the current West End show & Juliet brims with pop music, while a film like 1999’s 10 Things I Hate About You (based on The Taming of the Shrew) isn’t a play at all. This summer at the Globe Theatre, the artistic director Sean Holmes sticks with tradition in his staging of the comedy Much Ado About Nothing. The set is ornate, the costumes are Elizabethan, and the male characters are foolish manchildren. “This is a drama riddled with inversions,” the critic Sarah Hemming wrote in the Financial Times. Love masked as hate, lovers turned enemies. What more could one want? —Jeanne Malle