What is the difference between a wit and a shrew? Shakespeare’s Beatrice and Kate are equally vivacious, equally on fire against marriage. Yet one is rewarded with a chap who matches her high spirits; the other is doomed to be quelled by a tyrant.
I would not have guessed that this summer’s sellout at the Globe would be Much Ado About Nothing. Yet the play does have an affinity with this space. Two years ago, Lucy Bailey’s war-haunted production – feminist and alert to fascism – rocked the theatre. Now, Sean Holmes’s staging constantly pulls quick, sometimes unexpected reactions from the audience (1,570, 700 of them standing): satisfied sighs when Beatrice and Benedick finally kiss; urgings-on for Beatrice to eat Claudio’s heart “in the marketplace”.
