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Much Ado About Nothing : a comedy, William Shakespeare (1564-1616)Much Ado About Nothing is a comedy by William Shakespeare thought to have been written in 1598 and 1599, as Shakespeare was approaching the middle of his career. The play was included in the First Folio, published in 1623. By means of "noting" (which, in Shakespeare's day, sounded similar to "nothing" as in the play's title, and which means gossip, rumour, and overhearing), Benedick and Beatrice are tricked into confessing thei...
I saw an absolutely brilliant version of this play today at Shakespeare’s Globe in London. It was Mexican themed, full of dancing, gunshots, high racing emotions and many moments of farcical humour. All in all, it was a great production of an imperfect play. If I’m ever critical of Shakespeare’s works it’s because I know how excellent Shakespeare can be. The Tempest is one of the best things ever written in the English language. Similarly, Richard II is pure poetry, beautiful and powerful, but i...
Not much a review as some disjointed impressions from one of my favourite Shakespeare's comedies. Much ado about nothing is a display of wit and humour, from squabbles and cutting retorts between Beatrice and Benedick to the unrepeatable, full of malapropisms and nonsenses, humor presented by the the chief of the citizen-police in Messina, Dogberry and his bumbling sidekicks.In short: prince of Aragon, Don Pedro after defeating his half-brother Don John returns home, and surrounded by his court
Movie review at bottomThis is the most enjoyable play I’ve yet read in my Shakespeare project. Aside from the Elizabethan words that required me to check the footnotes, it had a very modern feel to it. The complicated plot, the good and bad characters, the denouement, the happy ending all reminded me of light comedies that I’ve seen performed on the modern stage.The play was probably written in 1598. In my Complete Works it has been placed in between Henry IV Part II and Henry V.The Introduction...
I don't think Much Ado ranks with Shakespeare's very best for three reasons: 1) the plot is weak, particularly the deception that moves things along during the first act (why does Don Pedro choose to woo by proxy en masque? What is to be gained by it except delay and confusion?), 2) Dogberry and Verges are second-rate clowns, and 3) Claudio, in his readiness to believe ill of Hero, is too unsympathetic a lover for a non-problem comedy. On the other hand, whenever Beatrice and Benedict are sparri...
What happened was, I hadn’t been paying close attention to my Netflix queue, and when Joss Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing was released, I quickly flicked it to the top of the queue (like I do all new releases) without remembering that I had wanted to save it for when I actually read the play. (I was also saving Kenneth Branagh’s for the same occasion.) Then the red envelope arrived and I couldn’t let it sit there forever and I’m certainly not going to waste a few days sending it back unwatched,...
Much Ado About Nothing, abridged. CLAUDIO: So, um, Hero, I sorta maybe like you a whole lot will you go to the prom with me?HERO: We should get married! Squeeeeeee!BEATRICE: Pfft. Love is for stupid losers who are stupid. BENEDICK: You know, you might get laid more often if you weren’t such a cynical bitch all the time.BEATRICE: Fuck you. BENEDICK: Get in line, sugartits.*audience is beaten over the head by sexual tension*DON PEDRO: Hey everybody, I had a great idea! Let’s make Beatrice and Bene...
Hey nonny, nonny! <--whatever that means, William.This is one that I've read before but I thought it would be cool to listen to the full cast audiobook.Definitely worth it.Just rewatched the 1993 movie, which is also worth it, but for a different reason.Keanu Reeves + Shakespeare = Unintentionally Hilarious!Alright. This is one of those stories that hold up, stands the test of time, and is still generally enjoyable. And it's from the late 1500s early 1600s, right?Now I know I can occasionally co...
In the 1906 preface to The Portrait of a Lady, Henry James described the book as ‘an ado about Isabel Archer’. That reference caught my attention, and since I'd never read Shakespeare’s 'Much Ado', and since I love to follow even the vaguest of book trails, I browsed my bookstore’s Shakespeare shelves as soon as I had an opportunity. Like most of you, I’d read some of the plays for study purposes but I’d never bought a Shakespeare play for pleasure. In my innocence, I presumed buying Shakespeare...
The most important thing to know about this play is that "nothing" used to be slang for vaginas. No, I know, you're like "This sounds like one of those things that people say because it's funny but then you look it up and it's totally not true," right? But it is true. So. Rather A Pickle About Pussies is what we're talking about here.The plot of this play, which is called A Bunch of Bother About Beavers, or Very Vexed About Vajayjays, is, oh god, who cares, everyone is confused and then they get...
Much Ado about Nothing, written in 1598, interweaves the story of two couples. The more interesting and definitely more amusing one is Benedick and Beatrice, who apparently have a rocky romance in their past history.But now they devote all of their energy in their interactions to insulting each other as wittily as possible, each trying to one-up the other.Beatrice wins most of the time. The other romance is between Claudio, a count and military friend of Benedick's, and Beatrice's cousin Hero, a...
its been 420 years but Benedick and Beatrice are still That Couple actual enemies to lovers excellence This is probably my favourite Shakespeare play I have seen yet. I read the script while also watching the filmed Globe performance and like .. its genuinely still laugh out loud funny. The Claudio storyline is annoying, but Hero is such a better character than Desdemona who has a similar plot line - Beatrice and Benedick are funny and sweet, and like I love them both. This deserves a really fun...
I’ve always found feistiness attractive. It’s probably the only consistent trait in the girls I’ve fallen for since high school. The clever retort, the unimpressed eye roll, the sarcastic aside: for better or worse, these are the things the pique my interest and prepare me for that unique form of suffering known as love. On my own, I’m hardly confident or witty enough to succeed in one-on-one situations with women who are shy or generally unforthcoming. I need someone to throw down the gauntlet
Let's face it, there aren't too many of Shakespeare's females who kick ass. Yes, we all can name the four or five that don't quite suck (Kat, Portia, Viola, Emilia, etc) but good strong feminine characters were not, it seems, the bard's strong suit. So as you wade through the whiny, conniving, helpless throngs of man worshipping wenches that appear in nearly all Shakespeare plays, it can be tempting to just give up looking for redemption. But alas, it is this lack of strong feminine voice that m...
here I am reviewing this play exactly 420 years since it came out.... it's what Beatrice and Benedick would've wantedSo... the thing is. This is, in all honesty, the play that got me into Shakespeare. I saw that Kenneth Branagh / Emma Thompson movie of it when I was maybe eight years old and I loved it so much (although I will point out that no adaptation has really understood the vibe of these characters so well as the David Tennant / Catherine Tate edition), and so that's why you can hate on t...
Don Pedro Prince of Aragon in Spain, is coming to Messina the capital of Sicily, for a little R&R just having defeated his treacherous half- brother in battle, (with few casualties, nobody important) Don John (the "Bastard") they are now reconciled again ! His army needs it Rest and Relaxation, the governor of that city is his good longtime friend Leonato. The time is unstated but Aragon, ruled that island in the 15th century. Count Claudio who gained glory in battle in the Prince's army and a f...
I am probably the last person in the whole history of the world to get it, but, just in case there's someone else left, it occurred to me yesterday that the title of this play had to be a rude pun. Five minutes on Google was enough to confirm my suspicions. From this page:In Shakespeare's time "nothing" was a euphemism for a woman's naughty bits. This gave the title three different yet equally appropriate meanings, as the main conflict over the play revolves around the false implication of Hero
Review 3 of 5 stars to William Shakespeare's play Much Ado About Nothing. We read this play in my 9th or 10th grade English course as a comparison to his more popular plays such as Macbeth, Othello, Romeo & Juliet and Hamlet, as well as something different from his historical fiction plays about various kings and queens. It was an opportunity to see his brilliance in writing something different and basically... about nothing. Well not really nothing, but you get the drift.It was a dec
“I do love nothing in the world so well as you. Is not that strange?”"Much Ado About Nothing" is one of Shakespeare's perennial crowd-pleasers and pops up in performance all the time in classical theatre companies. The reason is simple; it is a fun and witty play. It has some of the best verbal wordplay in all of Shakespeare, and it boasts the only middle aged lovers in all of the Bard's work, the lovely Beatrice and Benedick. This pair of former lovers bicker and snipe at each other with such i...
I'll be editing this review next week, as I'm going to the Pop Up Globe in Auckland to see this play. This is the final season for Auckland so I am really looking forward to it.I'm also going to Romeo and Juliet, but I'm not intending to reread this, as I have seen the Zeffirelli & Luhrmann versions multiple times. One of my favourite plays, two of my favourite films.As far as a reading experience goes - a few of the characters were painful! In particular Don Juan, Claudio & Hero. And Act III wa...