Overview

From the Royal Shakespeare Company a fresh new edition of Shakespeare's much-loved comedy of the battle between the sexes. This edition includes an illuminating introduction to Much Ado About Nothing by award-winning scholar Jonathan Bate, the text of the play with clear and authoritative explanatory notes on each page, a helpful scene-by-scene analysis and key facts about the play, an introduction to Shakespeare's career and the Elizabethan theatre, and a rich exploration of approaches to staging the play featuring photographs of key productions. This unique edition presents a historical overview of Much Ado About Nothing in performance, recommends film versions, takes a detailed look at specific productions and includes interviews with two leading directors and an actor , Nicholas Hytner, Marianne Elliott and Harriet Walter, so that we may get a sense of the extraordinary variety of interpretations that are possible, a variety that gives Shakespeare his unique capacity to be reinvented and made 'our contemporary' four centuries after his death. Ideal for students, theatre-goers, actors and general readers, the RSC Shakespeare editions offer an accessible and contemporary approach to reading and rediscovering Shakespeare's works for the twenty-first century.