Much Ado About Nothing (Shakespeare Handbook)

Much Ado About Nothing shows the violence of desire as well as its drive towards creative plotting or matchmaking. In this Handbook, Alison Findlay examines the play's comic and tragic potential in the theatre; its attempts to harmonise love and war, attraction and repulsion. The volume: * explores the play's resonance in early performances with reference to the crisis over fast-changing fashions, gendered notions of honour, and the changing personnel of Shakespeare's company * analyses the play from a performance point of view scene by scene, considering the interactions between spectators and actors * surveys key productions and films, including Barry Jackson's radical modernist production of 1919, the recently-rediscovered television film of Zeffirelli's 1965 National Theatre Production, and Kenneth Branagh's 1993 film version * outlines the play's critical history from the eighteenth century to the present day, with a focus on contemporary concerns such as genre hybridity, sources and intertexts, and the instability of signs and appearances.