(seen at the evening preview performance on 18th February 2025)
If you are going to have a major heartthrob in your show, you may as well tailor the show to the audience reaction to him. Easily done, fortunately, when your play is about some of the most egotistical lovers ever.
Tom Hiddleston and Hayley Atwell as Benedick and Beatrice are the Basil and Sybil of their day, Tom and Jerry, always trying to one-up the other with badly concealed lust powering the engine.
Both on fine form, asides to the audience adding to the mischief and exposing their souls. Hiddleston’s early “thumbs up” acknowledgment of his sex appeal, Atwell’s heartfelt mouthed “bitch” as her own is later questioned. The chemistry is always foaming and frequently explosive. Unforgettable.
Mirroring them at junior level, Mara Huff and James Phoon as Hero and Claudio have their own romance derailed by machinations for fun. Building on their time together in “The Tempest” last month, the partnership reaches new heights as the trust between them is clear and the bond grows.
All four have a whale of a time ploughing through the pink confetti (Soutra Gilmour’s set, with a few chairs and a table added) to milk roars of laughter and sympathetic sighs from one of the most engaged audiences for Shakespeare the monkey has been lucky enough to encounter.
Director Jamie Lloyd relies on his usual tricks initially. Presenting Shakespeare as it would have been first done – actors in a line, speaking their lines – a trope he used for “The Seagull” and others.
Fortunately, that slips away with far more animated direction incorporating fun choreography (Fabian Alois) and soaring vocals from Mason Alexander Park’s observant Margaret.
With a nod to “The Masked Singer” for masquerade, a vibrant bunch of cats, dogs, Tweety Pie and a robot create far greater visual impact in the vast Drury Lane space than the monkey thought possible.
The large ensemble cast never fail to impress. Tim Steed as Don John should not remain lonesome for long, cutting a grounding figure in his key scene. Mika Onyx Johnson gets some redemption as Borachio, making a creep loveable.
Forbes Masson and Gerald Kyd as Leonato and Don Pedro are the seniors faced with the wild marriage machinations, exasperated fathers who know the joys and challenges the younger generation have ahead.
The production is not without faults. Lloyds old tropes aside, for some reason there is a drop-off in energy in the second to fourth scenes of act two, and the monkey cannot quite work out why.
A very odd decision by Soutra Gilmour also proves that an attractive person can make wearing a dustbin liner appealing. Quite why Gilmour does that to Atwell, the monkey is unsure. But it is both very weird and very, very unnecessary.
From the upbeat pre-show music (and dancing ushers holding the ‘no photography’ signs) to an impressively clear speaking of the text, so good that the youngsters in the audience were following enthralled, laughing in anticipation of the joke at times; a starry cast enhance their acting reputations as well as clearly relishing every second as a company. This is nothing but an ado to make much about.
