" Much Ado About Nothing " by William Shakespeare

Performed by Your Chance Productions.

Derby Theatre (Studio)

"Much Ado About Nothing" begins in Messina, where Leonata lives with her daughter, Hero, and her cousin and companion, the Lady Beatrice. Leonata receives word that his friend, the Duke Don Pedro has returned from war and plans to visit with some of his fellow soldiers. Among the party is Claudio, who quickly falls in love with Hero. Benedick, in this production Benedicta, a bachelor who has sworn off love and marriage, also comes, and he enjoys speaking her mind in witty argument with Beatrice.

Leonata holds a masked ball to celebrate the end of the war. While at the ball, the engagement of Claudio and Hero is arranged. Friends seek a way to spoil the general happiness and they plot, with Borachio to deceive Claudio into believing Hero has cheated on him.

That night, Hero's maid, Margaret, talks with Borachio. Claudio and the Duke watch secretly from a distance and think that the girl is Hero. Meanwhile, Hero, Claudius and Don Pedro decide Benedicta and Beatrice are ideal partners, despite (or because of) their bickering. They make a plot to allow Benedicta to overhear them discussing Beatrice's love for him and vice versa. After a series of overheard conversations, Benedicta and Beatrice realise they do indeed love one another.

At Hero's wedding, Claudio is still deceived into thinking Hero cheated on him. He denounces her and leaves her apparently dead from shock. With the help of the priest, Leonata, Beatrice, and Benedicta decide to pretend that Hero is actually dead until her name can be cleared of the slander. Later, the watchmen—managed by the bumbling village constable Dogberry–overhear Borachio brag about the trick that had been played on Claudio and Don Pedro. Borachio is arrested.

Dogberry's incriminating information is, after some difficulty, given to Leonata and Don Pedro. As penance for causing Hero's death, Claudio agrees to accept Leonato's "niece" in her place. The "niece" turns out to be Hero (conveniently). The play comes to a joyful conclusion as the lovers are reunited, and Benedicta and Beatrice announce that they will share the wedding day and the play ends with a merry dance.

Sophie Marlowe plays Beni (Benedicta), normally a male role but the great thing with Shakespeare is that you can mix up the character genders and have a lot of fun with them. There's a lot of sass with Sophie, well played out as Benedicta.

Kate Lewis, who I last saw in Your Chance's production of "the Tempest", plays Beatrice and is just a good a match for Benedicta as any theatrical pairing.

Olivia Paige plays Hero, and for a smaller actor, she certainly made sure that the audience noticed her. A new actor to thine eyes but one that made an impact on me as she delivered the Shakespearian language as if it were her native tongue. She is so at ease with this style of theatre, and plays the part with several layers of emotion.

Laurence James-Davis plays Claudio, and another new name. Laurence is an actor to watch out for as he also delivers the lines with great ease, he emotes, and he can bust some non-Shakespearian moves as well. I hope that we see more of Laurence in other productions as he is a natural performer, dancer and actor, and I really enjoyed his modern portrayal of Claudio.

Charles Andrews makes his Your Chance debut as Don Pedro, and to start with I hoped that he would project his voice more, and then half way through he did and you could see him melting into the character and the role, and his voice level increased, and I really started to enjoy his role.

Samantha Badman plays Leonata. I adore watching Sam act; I've seen her in several Shakespeare roles as well as other new and classic parts, and she can turn her acting abilities to any role chameleonically. Smooth and easy with her delivery, and she "gets" Shakespeare which comes with experience of the Bard's work.

Sheila Kay Sly also makes her debut with Your Chance as Ursula, and again, for a debut performance, there seemed to be no nerves for her and that made for a smooth performance also. Doubling up as Sexton also gave a chance to show even more of her comic side.

Bertie Black plays Borachio. Bertie is Bertie and he always brings that common touch to all of his roles; and that's not a negative comment because he can bring the character down to a level that everyone understands. Even with Shakespeare's script, he adds an element of Bertie to the character, and anyone who knows Bertie will know that this is a lovely human thing to be able to inject into a character role. Bertie is a physical actor and this is also demonstrated with his comic tumbling while trying to outdo the two watchmen who are trying to arrest him.

Sarah Dillon, another newbie to the Your Chance stable plays Princess Joanna and Margaret the maid. I am really loving all of these new faces in the Your Chance team because they are all so good, and let's face it Shakespeare is not the sort of play that you'd possible choose to debut in, but Sarah, as well as the other newbies, really impressed me.

Detective Dogberry is played by Jane Russell and P.C Verges of the Messina Police Department, is played by Diana Frempong. Both characters need to be played by someone who can deliver comedy, and excellent visual comedy, and Jane and Diana, certainly achieve that, with Diana playing the "lapdog" role to Jane's more authoritarian role. Both working so well together; I bet they had fun in rehearsals!

John Wilkinson and Adrees Hussain take on multiple roles within the production including members of the watch, the upstanding citizens who are responsible for keeping law and order on the streets of Messina. Another wonderful comedy pairing. John doubling up as the Friar seemed to get lost backstage at one point, but was just about covered up by Samantha and Sheila who ad-libbed while he was located behind the curtains.

The reason why Shakespeare is so very popular still hundreds of years after these plays were written is because they can be presented in any way, and this very modern take is wonderfully entertaining and fresh. There were scenes with mobile phones, laptops, radios and a stag/hen night that could have been lifted straight from the musical "Mamma Mia". Plus we heard Madeline Walker's Post Modern Jukebox version of Britney Spears' "Toxic". Britney Vs The Bard.

Now, talking about the stag/hen nights, this is where I started to get a twitch in my eye, and ear. It went on longer than I'd have wanted. The two parties were separated by the lighting - more about that later - and we had the stags doing high energy/techno dances to the likes of the Vengaboys, Steps, Scooter and The Cartoons while the hens, on the other side of the performance area dancing mainly to Abba - see the Mamma Mia connection. There was about five minutes or so switching form one party to the next to show all involved getting tipsier, but the music editing was awful. The tracks sounded like they were jumping all over the place with pauses between the two parties, mainly gapped for the light to fade on one side and come up on the other side. Backwards and forwards with seconds of darkness and the songs skipping all over the place.

Okay, now my other eye twitching moment, and I can't lay the blame for this at Your Chance's door, I don't think. There was an annoying issue with the lights which kept coming on over the audience and going off or they simply blacked out the whole room; I was looking in my pockets - when the lights were on - to find a fifty pence piece to load into the meter!

Once the lights went off, and came back on just in time for Benedicta to deliver the line "Oh the light.....", which I noticed caused a ripple of smiles across the actor's faces, and received a round of unplanned applause from the audience as well.

These things aside, this was a wonderfully funny and modern take on the classic Shakespeare comedy, with some delightful little extras added and Director Jessica McLean should be proud of the cast and the freshness of the production. The most chuckleworthy production of "Much Ado" I've seen - and I mean that in a very good way. Please though, just get a new music editor and lighting generator/operative as it could have ended up a comedy of errors!

"Much Ado About Nothing" by Your Chance Productions is at the Studio within Derby Theatre until Saturday 29 October.