Much Ado About Nothing, Old Vic, 28 September 2013
This production was dreadful. So bad that at points I had to close my eyes because I could not bear to look at it. At the end I did not applaud because I was so stunned at its ineptitude. Leaving the Old Vic, I expected to see blue police tape cordoning it off so that the crime I had just witnessed could be investigated.
It really did look as if the director Mark Rylance had completely abandoned the project and the cast had been left to cobble together something themselves.
Though I had to admire James Earl Jones for puffing his way through his lines like The Little Engine That Could, Vanessa Redgrave recited her part with the casual neglect of someone who had already been paid and whose mind was definitely elsewhere.
By writing this much I have already devoted more thought to the production than evidently went into its making. Enough.
Margate Sands 