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A review by brizreader
Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare
4.0
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.
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.