Well I did two reviews for my arts award and so I'm sharing one of them on here so...


On Thursday 27th March 2008, I, along with year nine students and several teachers from HBS, went to see the play Much Ado About Nothing at the National Theatre. We went to see this because it is the play we are studying for our English SATs.
Much Ado About Nothing is a play written by William Shakespeare and this version was directed by Nicholas Hynter. It stars Zoë Wanamaker from My Family as Beatrice and Simon Russell Beale as Benedick. Throughout the play, a ‘merry war’ between Beatrice and Benedick takes place where they exchange witty remarks about each other. The play is set in Messina, in Sicily, after Don Pedro (the prince of Aragon) returns after a war against his brother whom he has captured.
I enjoyed the play very much as almost everything was as I imagined or better, for example the scene where Benedick jumps into a pool of water to hide himself from Claudio, Leonato and Don John. The only part I did not like was when Zoë Wanamaker said “Kill Claudio!” and a lot of the audience started laughing. It was supposed to be a serious scene and the laughing spoiled it for me. The rest of the play was great.
I would certainly recommend this play to everyone, not only Shakespeare fans. It certainly helps you understand the play more if you are studying it. You don’t have to be a Shakespeare buff to know what is going on, the fantastic actors, set and costume help make the play easy to follow.
Watching the play made me think about things more, especially the themes that run through it and how the characters interact with one another, which certainly helps because I will have to do an exam on it in two weeks.