The Paper Tiger

Much Ado About Nothing
Royal Shakespeare Company
The Observer

I have grown fickly weary of the perspex sets for Much Ado About Nothing (Barbican); they dehydrate the action. But Terry Hands’s productions has otherwise gained in shapeliness; Sinead Cusack's Beatrice is a serious, wounded creature from the start, whereas Derek Jacobi’s Benedick has visibly to grow up in the church scene where he circles her praying figure. 

Remarkably catchy music (Shakespeare’s greatest hits?) is supplied by Nigel Hess. His more solemn setting of ‘Sigh no more, ladies' deserves to be more than a hit: a standard.