Benedick has just been duped by his friends into believing that Beatrice loves him: "Hah! There's a double meaning in that!"

I chose Much Ado About Nothing for very simple reasons ? I love working with Shakespeare, and I have always enjoyed the 'merry war' which is the love story of Beatrice and Benedick. Here are a couple of intellectual equals who get pleasure from delaying the inevitable as they trade clever insults, and who grow to appreciate each other not through 'love at first sight', but because of their minds and personalities. And as I have already directed Twelfth Night, As You Like It and A Midsummer Night's Dream (as well as Ophelia Thinks Harder and Revenge of the Amazons, New Zealand playwright Jean Betts' comic re-workings of Hamlet and A Midsummer Night's Dream), it was high on the list of plays I wanted to tackle next!

Constable Dogberry and his faithful second-in-command Verges.

One of the things which first struck me about Much Ado About Nothing is how ready everyone is to accept what they see and what they are told at face value. An early scene takes place at a masked dance, and masks are a good analogy for that reliance on surfaces which leads to all the 'ado' in the play. Hence the mask which forms part of our set, impassively watching the action. I chose a nightclub setting ? "Leonato's" ? partly because it just seems to work as a context for the story, but also because a nightclub, like a theatre, appears to be one thing at night, and looks quite different in the harsh light of day. The play begins with talk of war, from which the soldiers led by Don Pedro are returning. I chose to set this production loosely in the 1940s, to give a wartime context to the 'ado' about 'nothing' which ensues in the story. Or as Humphrey Bogart famously said in Casablanca (1942): "It doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world."

Shows some of the set for the production. This is the start of the wedding scene in Act 4.

I have edited the text quite substantially for clarity and pace. I had eleven and a half actors at my disposal - which is a large cast for a professional production - and the play lists 21 speaking parts, plus 'extras'. I removed several characters altogether, redistributing some essential dialogue, which had the added advantage of allowing me to develop certain character relationships. Of course, Shakespeare's own company doubled actors in more than one role, and in some cases, that is exactly what I have done. (Look for the cast name anagrams!) It has provided some very satisfying parallel action, where several of the characters who cause trouble in the play are doubled with characters who help to solve that trouble. So in a sense, they can punish themselves. I have cut some of the dialogue and (for fun) added a few lines from King Lear, Measure For Measure and Two Gentlemen of Verona. I was driving home one day after rehearsal to beautiful Broad Bay when Sonnet 116 suddenly popped into my head, and I realised how appropriate it was to the story of Much Ado About Nothing, so I found a place to include it. Cutting the text really makes you think about the characters and about how Shakespeare's writing works. I recommend it as an exercise! And remember ? you can always go back and read the full text by Master William Shakespeare if you are curious about what I have omitted.

The whole rehearsal period has been a fun, exhilarating, creative time. My thanks to a wonderful cast and crew.

I hope you enjoy the show.

- Lisa Warrington

Hero is greatly wronged on her wedding day

This song opens my production:

"Someone to Watch Over Me" (George & Ira Gershwin):

There's a saying old says that love is blind
Still we're often told, seek and ye shall find
So I'm going to seek a certain lad I've had in mind.
Looking everywhere, haven't found him yet.
He's the big affair I can not forget -
Only man I ever think of with regret.
I'd like to add his initial to my monogram.
Tell me, where is the shepherd for this lost lamb?
There's a somebody I'm longing to see,
I hope that he turns out to be
Someone who'll watch over me.
I'm a little lamb who's lost in a wood,
I know I could always be good
To one who'll watch over me.
Athough he may not be the man some girls think of as handsome
To my heart he carries the key.
Won't you tell him please to put on some speed,
Follow my lead, oh how I need
Someone to watch over me.

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