Hi everyone, it's Lauren and welcome to
another episode in my series on
Shakespeare. In today's video we're going
to be looking at Much Ado About Nothing
if you would like a more general
overview of Shakespeare or some tips on
how to go about reading his plays then I
will leave a link to the Shakespeare
series playlist in the description box
below this video. Much Ado About Nothing
is one of Shakespeare's most performed
comedies we open the play at Leonato's
house who is a rich landed gentleman in
Italy and he's welcoming home
soldiers from the war led by the Prince
Don Pedro, his brother his illegitimate
brother Don John and his other men
Claudio and Benedick. The play then
unfolds with two parallel love stories
one concerning Leonato's daughter Hero
and the other his niece Beatrice. The
Beatrice and Benedick plotline is one of
the most famous and I think this is what
everyone thinks of when they think of
Much Ado About Nothing. Essentially
Beatrice and Benedick both are very
strong, witty characters, both have
decided that they're never going to get
married and they hate each other at the
beginning of the play, they have a
constant witty repartee between them
and then their friends conspire that
they actually think they would be very
well matched as though as husband and
wife
so they engineer a couple of situations
where Beatrice and Benedick each find
themselves individually in a situation
where they are overhearing their friends
talking about them, so Beatrice overhears
Hero and her ladies talking about how
the fact that Benedick is in love with
her and Benedick overhears his friends
Leonato and Claudio talking about how
Beatrice is in love with him, and through
hearing this information they then each
actually start to fall in love with each
other. The other plot line between Hero
and Claudio I actually find quite funny
but it's almost quite tragic and it
really balances out the love story
between Beatrice and Benedick. In this
plotline Claudio sees Hero when he
arrives at Leonato's house, falls
instantly in love with her and gets Don
Pedro to woo her on his behalf at masked
ball that they have, Hero agrees to marry
him and everything's hunky-dory
apart from Don Pedro's illegitimate
brother Don John, John the bastard, who
for whatever reason decides to scupper
this union and what he does is he gets
his man to talk to one of Hero's
servants Ursula for
her window he gets her to dress up in
Hero's clothes talk to his man and he
gets Claudio and Don Pedro and Benedick
to overhear this and so that they think
that Ursula is Hero and they think that
Hero is being unfaithful to Claudio. This
plotline spirals out of control so
quickly; Claudio declares that Hero is
unfaithful to him at their wedding, Hero
then promptly faints Leonato is so
ashamed that he doesn't know what to do
and then a friendly friar comes along
and says that perhaps they should pretend
that Hero died because that would be
better for her to have died than to live
and be unfaithful and his plan is that
if Claudio hears that Hero has died then
Claudia's love will reignite and he'll
feel really sorry about the fact that
she died. I don't know what it is that
friars and which ending that people have
died perhaps he'd just been in Verona
with Romeo Juliet, I don't know but in
this instance it does actually work out
everyone discovers that Hero is actually
innocent
Claudio comes back at the end of the day
to marry Hero's cousin because Leonato
kind of says well you've killed my
daughter somehow, so therefore you have
to marry her cousin instead and then
it's all revealed as the cousin that
Claudio is marrying is actually Hero so
we're all happy and then obviously
Beatrice and Benedick get married
everything is good. What I find very
interesting about these two storylines
is that you have this Beatrice and
Benedick love story which is actually
very funny but not just in a kind of
slapstick way because they're
overhearing these conversations,
but also in a very witty way because they
are equals and they have this funny
dialogue between them and that is funny
but it also seems to be a lot more
complex, as individual characters there's
a lot more to them and it's the
sensibilities in this relationship that
I think we latch onto today and we can
see ourselves in Beatrice and Benedick
and we really as an audience can see
that that's what the human heart is like
and hearing that someone else likes you
does change your perception of them, and
then on the other hand we have this
swooping romance and it's actually quite
a tragic romance between Hero and Claudio
which seems to be so beautiful and then
in the end you know, turns to tragedy
when Hero is denounced and humiliated in
front of all of her friends and family
but it actually ends up OK and it's
quite a strange
subplot or side plot because I think
things escalate so quickly within this
plotline that you almost can't take it
seriously - the fact that Claudio has only
met Hero kind of a few times, decides to
marry her and then straight away,
denounces her and it's so dreadful that
they have to pretend that Hero has died
it goes on this absolute roller coaster
of emotions so although it's there as
perhaps a more tragic element, it doesn't
feel like it has the gravitas of the
traditional Shakespeare tragedies. One of
the most obvious themes in Much Ado
About Nothing is of course love, because
we have all of these love stories
happening, but I think one of the main
themes really is deception and there's a
lot of acts of deception and
misinterpretation throughout the play
from the outset we have this masked ball
where on one hand you have Beatrice and
Benedick and Beatrice is talking to a
masked Benedick talking about how much
she hates Benedick and how annoying he is
and this is quite an interesting scene
because it can be played that Beatrice
honestly doesn't know who this person is
and is just talking to him about how
much she dislikes Benedick, it may also
betray herself because if she doesn't
know that this is Benedick then why is
she talking about him? Perhaps it's
showing that she has hidden feelings for
Benedick or she can't stop talking about
him herself! And then on the other hand
you have the option that perhaps
Beatrice knows that this is Benedick and
she's talking him down just to rub
him up the wrong way so that's kind of
an interesting interaction that we have
on that side, and then at the same time
at this party you have Don Pedro masking
himself as Claudio and going over to woo
and Hero on Claudia's behalf, later on in
the play we obviously have the two major
deceptions of Beatrice and Benedick
where they're overhearing their friends
talking about them
you have Don John and Ursula deceiving
Claudio into thinking that Hero's
unfaithful, later on we have Hero
pretending that she's dead and then we also
have this fake wedding at the end where
Beatrice and Hero both come masked as
other people and then it's discovered
that that's who they are and they're
going to get married. And then the other
really interesting theme to me is the
presentation of men and women and their
differences and actually who men and
women are. On one hand you have Beatrice
who is a very modern representation of a
woman she's very strong she's
independent
she's decided at the beginning of the
play she's never going to marry and she
is presented as an equal to Benedick who
equally has decided he doesn't want to
marry. Beatrice's reasons seem a little
bit more traditional in that she would
lose her independence if she did get
married. From Benedick's point of view he
makes a lot of jokes about husbands
being cuckolds which means that they are
they have unfaithful wives that they're wives are
cheating on them
there's actually a lot of jokes about
cuckoldry throughout the play and it
seems very clear from perhaps Don Pedro
and Benedick's perspective that all
husband's are cuckolds and that it's
inevitable that a wife will be
unfaithful, which is quite an interesting
perception of women especially where at
the same time we have this plot line
with Hero and Claudio. Hero is a very
traditional representation of a passive
upper-class daughter of Italy at this
time, she is almost silent when she's in
company with men even at the point where
Claudio denounces her at her wedding
all she does is faint because she can't
handle it, she doesn't really stand up
for herself, but she does talk a lot more
when she's with her serving women and
when she's with Beatrice she has a lot
more of a personality. She's also very
obedient and continues to marry Claudio
at the end of the play despite all of
the heartache of humiliation that he's
caused her, because her father had
commanded it and Leonato's perception
and relationship with his daughter is
equally interesting, he does say when
Hero's denounced that he would rather that
she were dead than be alive and
bring this shame on the family, and so
although he loved her there is this very
strong sense of duty that he puts upon
her which doesn't seem to be put upon
Beatrice which is okay because she's an
orphan and she's living with her uncle
but she doesn't seem to have this duty
to marry and be faithful in the way that
Hero does. I also think it's very
interesting to look at Claudio as a
character and his perception of women
because right at the beginning of the
play he falls in love with Hero after
seeing her once and straightaway decides
that's the girl for him, but he doesn't
go and talk to her himself what he does
is send Don Pedro in masked as Claudio
and gets him to woo her for him and
there are times where he thinks that
perhaps Don Pedro is trying to win Hero
for himself and he gets very jealous of
them, in the end it's all ok
but he's very quickly taken in by this
presentation from Don John of Hero being
unfaithful and to be honest what does
Hero really do she just talks out of her
window to a man? 'Hero'
Ursula, what does she do? That's not
really being unfaithful but to him
that's it, she's unclean and not
only does he decide to call the
engagement off he wants to humiliate her
in front of everybody at her wedding, he
completely denounces her as a person and
and then later on he doesn't actually
show remorse when he finds out the Hero
had 'died', he does show remorse however
when it is discovered that she was
innocent and she wasn't unfaithful at
all, that's when he feel sad about the
fact that she died and he's so sorry
to Leonato for the situation that he
agrees to marry and Hero's cousin
Leonato says that he has to marry now
and he's okay with that he's like, that's
fine I'll just marry her then! In terms
of adaptations there are some fantastic
ones that you can go and watch if you
are interested in seeing Much Ado
About Nothing performed there's one for
the 90s for in Kenneth Branagh and Emma
Thompson who give absolutely fantastic
performances. There are some perhaps less
than brilliant performances in this film
but the goods definitely outweighs the
bad and it's so beautifully shot in the
Italian countryside and I would really
recommend that one. Another one which
gives a different angle is a Joss Whedon
one which is set in the modern day and
this is really funny it really shows the
kind of witty banter between Beatrice
and Benedick in a very different light
because it's set in the modern times
it's quite sarcastic and dry and I
really like that and what this one does
particularly well it show the visual
comedy with Beatrice and Benedick over
hearing this conversation and there's a
lot of scope for doing a lot of
slapstick humour into those scenes and I
think this adaptation does that very
well. So I would love to hear if you have
any more thoughts about this play if you
studied it in school let me know what
other plays you'd like me to do an
analysis of and/or if there are any
other topics to do with Shakespeare that
you'd like me to talk about or discuss
let me know in the comments below and I
will see you in my next video, bye!
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