Love’s Labours Lost / Much Ado about Nothing
Thomas’ College
Playing at Thomas’s College until 22nd August 2026
This production of Love’s Labours Lost and Much Ado About Nothing is in two parts. Part 1 is Love’s Labours Lost and Part 2 is Much Ado About nothing. It is best to see them in order but not necessarily needed to as they are obviously two different plays by William Shakespeare that have been adapted by director Tom Littler to be about the same characters, mostly from Much Ado with the names of the characters in Love’s Labours changed accordingly but in one or two cases the other way round.
Love’s Labours Lost is set just before the second world war and follows the Prince of Navarre and his three companions as they attempt to swear off the company of women for three years in order to focus on study and fasting. Their subsequent infatuation with the Princess of France and her ladies makes them break their oath. In an untraditional ending for a comedy, the play closes with the death of the Princess’s father, and all weddings are delayed for a year. The play draws on themes of masculine love and desire, reckoning and rationalisation, and reality versus fantasy.
Much Ado About Nothing is set at the end of the war when the Prince and his three friends return from fighting four years later and attempt to take up again with the loves they left behind previously. Having been away at war has obviously changed both them and their ladies.
To make this idea of combining both plays into one story has meant that Littler has had to make some changes to the dialogue, character names, situations etc and also to write some new dialogue and import other pieces from other Shakespearean plays. Purists may not like this.
Does this work? Yes, it very much does so. Love’s Labours Lost is a lesser known and performed play for a reason. It is with the second play, Much Ado About Nothing, that this production really comes alive as it is a far better play but don’t let that put you off seeing both parts.
Performed in the open air in the beautiful grounds of Thomas’s College, Richmond, this production makes good use of it’s surroundings allowing the cast to come and go from a distance (all entrances timed beautifully to within a millisecond even when the audience can see them coming from afar), hide in bushes and trees and even throw things around with plenty of space for them to land.
The ensemble cast are asked to play multiple parts throughout the two plays and this is done well with it being easy to realise which character is being portrayed at any given time. James Sheldon leads the cast as Benedick Berowne with him really coming into his own in the second play but all of the actors have meaty enough roles to play to give them all an opportunity to show their capabilities. I was particularly taken by Chirag Benedict Lobo’s Claudio Dumain and member of the night watch.
The set by Neil Irish works well and he and Annett Black have also done an excellent job in dressing the female members of the cast who all always look stunning in their many costume changes.
If you don’t mind your Shakespeare being updated to a different time period and it being altered quite a lot then this production is for you and I advise you to try to see a double-bill performance to watch the whole thing play out over the course of an afternoon and evening.
⭐⭐⭐
Reviewer: Mike Linane