♪♪ -"Much Ado About Nothing" is one of Shakespeare's most joyous and popular plays, and he was only 35 years old when he wrote it.

But by the time he writes "Much Ado," Shakespeare has already written 16 plays.

-Shakespeare is still really young at this point, so it's this astonishing productivity that Shakespeare has.

-"Much Ado" is a play about love and marriage.

-You come hither, my lord, to marry this lady.

-It may be a comedy, but it comes dangerously close to tragedy.

-How doth the lady?

-Dead, I think.

-He's completely thrown away an opportunity and killed.

-At its heart is an extraordinary woman.

-I'd rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me.

-There's a positivity about her which feels radiant.

-She's breaking the mold.

She's smashing a verbal glass ceiling.

-Above all, it's quick-witted and smart.

-I wonder that you will still be talking, Signior Benedick.

Nobody marks you.

-What, my dear Lady Disdain!

Are you yet living?

-You couldn't come up with that line if you had time to think about it.

-And it's an emotional roller coaster.

-Stop talking and kiss.

That's what the audience have been waiting for.

-Whatever his age, "Much Ado" is clearly written by a man at his peak.

-This is the play where Shakespeare has found full maturity as a comic writer.

-So what is the "nothing" that "Much Ado about Nothing" is about?

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -Funding for "Shakespeare Uncovered" ♪♪ -This is Hollywood, where I grew up, and the home of the movies.

From the very beginning, one of the great staples of the movie industry has been the romantic comedy, especially those films that tell the story of two characters who don't even seem to like each other but who in the end discover that they are, of course, in love.

It's been told many times in many different ways, but where does this kind of story come from?

Where does this idea begin?

For many of us, it begins 400 years ago, with Shakespeare, with a play called "Much Ado About Nothing" and a couple called Beatrice and Benedick.

[ Horse neighs ] "Much Ado About Nothing" may seem like a simple romance.

-Don Pedro is approached!

[ All screaming ] -But it will flirt with danger and darkness before allowing us to enjoy its happy ending.

Oh, my God.

It's one sexy man on a horse after another.

♪♪ I love this version and how romantic and unabashed and how much they're enjoying each other, and it's just an absolute -- The opening just says, "We are in.

We are all in.

We're not ironic.

We're not holding back.

We're just in."

And I love it.

"Much Ado" takes place in the villa of one Leonato in Messina.

It begins as a story of Don Pedro and his soldiers coming back from a war and the women who are waiting for them.

First, there is an innocent couple, a young officer called Claudio and Leonato's daughter, Hero.

-I find here that Don Pedro hath bestowed much honour on a young Florentine called Claudio.

[ Laughter ] -And then Shakespeare introduces us to Hero's cousin, Beatrice, and Claudio's best friend and mentor, Benedick.

-Is Signior Mountanto returned from the wars or no?

-I know none of that name, lady.

-My cousin means Signior Benedick of Padua.

[ Laughter ] -Oh, he's returned, and as pleasant as ever he was.

-He is no less than a stuffed man.

-You must not, sir, mistake my niece.

There is a kind of merry war betwixt Signior Benedick and her.

♪♪ -But behind all the appearance of merriness and romance, there are dark forces at work in this household.

And the action of the play, which takes place over only a few days, is about whether these two couples -- Beatrice and Benedick and Hero and Claudio, will ever get and stay together.

I've played Beatrice twice, and am interested in revisiting it and talking to people who are chewing on it and trying to get to the bottom of what makes it so full and rich and funny.

And the play has both the light and the dark, and I'm interested in finding out how people are wrestling with that.

♪♪ I am beginning my journey in the town of Shakespeare's birth, Stratford-upon-Avon.

And the first thing I find out is a bit of a surprise, at least for me.

Someone pointed out to me that the Beatrice-Benedick story is not really the main plot of the play, which I didn't realize until someone said it.

-Not at all.

I mean, nobody's ever really become a star by playing either Claudio or Hero, but that's the story that Shakespeare knew.

That's the story everybody knew.

-Where did it come from?

-The version Shakespeare seems to have known best is this one by Matthaeus Bandello.

It was in Italian.

Shakespeare probably knew the Italian, but it was then translated into French, and he certainly knew the French.

-And then Beatrice and Benedick come from where?

His imagination?

-They come from Shakespeare.

They're the two star parts that Shakespeare does add.

They're the sort of magic ingredient that's stitched into this story to completely change the tone of the thing.

-So Shakespeare's source was an old Italian story about Hero and Claudio.

♪♪ The BBC tried to recreate a villa in Messina in a TV studio in West London when they produced "Much Ado" in 1984.

-Good Signior Leonato.

♪♪ -But the Royal Shakespeare Company showed in their recent stage production that you certainly don't have to set the play in 16th-century Italy.

♪♪ -Good Signior Leonato.

-Well, clearly, this is very different.

It's got a sort of "Downton Abbey" at wartime feel.

-Being gone... -One of the great strengths of "Much Ado" is that wherever and whenever you set it, the basic story about the four main characters always works.

-I think this is your daughter.

-Her mother did many times tell me so.

[ Laughter ] -Were you in doubt, sir, that you asked her?

-Signior Benedick, no.

-Truly, the lady fathers herself.

-We're introduced to the young lovers, Hero and Claudio, who are, I guess, technically the central story of the play, but they have nothing to say.

[ Laughs ] -Hero and Claudio are kind of the structure of the play, and she is a bit of a vehicle, in some respects.

And she's also there a lot, but she doesn't have so much to say.

♪♪ -Hero and Claudio don't have a lot of lines together.

Everyone else talks except for them.

And you just have to kind of work in whatever interaction.

It's just a locking of eyes or whatever it is, and hopefully, the audience pick up on that.

-Look, here she comes.

[ Laughter ] -The other central characters, Beatrice and Benedick, are Shakespeare's invention.

But they've become the stars of the show.

-I sort of fall in love with all of Shakespeare's characters.

But I guess it's just -- There's a legacy to Beatrice and Benedick that you also take on when you sort of come to these characters.

-Shakespeare uses Claudio and Hero as the young, idealistic, main thrust that other characters and other elements of the plot bounce off, which makes it quite fun, in a way, for Benedick and Beatrice to be the more kind of subversive, realistic, older people going through a similar kind of journey.

-There's an interesting paradox in the structure of the play, which is, everything happens to Hero and Claudio, but they have nothing to say about it.

Nothing happens to Beatrice and Benedick, and they have everything to say about it.

-But at the beginning of the play, they don't have anything very nice to say to each other -- quite the reverse, in fact.

-I wonder that you will still be talking, Signior Benedick.

Nobody marks you.

-What, my dear Lady Disdain!

Are you yet living?

-This is the very first conversation between Beatrice and Benedick, and it sets the tone.

It sets up the chemistry, and it sets up their love-hate, hate-love, clearly, desperation for each other.

-Is it possible disdain should die while she hath such meet food to feed it as Signior Benedick?

-What Shakespeare is suggesting is that Beatrice and Benedick have had some kind of relationship in the past, and it didn't end well.

-The play gives us hints to a prior liaison, and there's a sense in which Beatrice and Benedick's wit is as a cover for their vulnerabilities.

-But it is certain I am loved of all ladies, only you excepted.

And I would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard heart, for, truly, I love none.

-A dear happiness to women.

-They go straight into their routine, straight into their, you know, "I can be quicker than you.

I can insult you even better than you can insult me."

-They would else have been troubled with a pernicious suitor.

I thank God and my cold blood, I am of your humour for that.

-Its made very obvious in the writing that they pick up where they last left off as sparring partners with unfinished business.

-I know you of old.

-I never knew really where the relationship starts.

Obviously, it starts before the play, and it's obviously gone on and on, where they've rejected each other.

But there's definitely venom in both characters.

-Whatever may have happened in Beatrice and Benedick's past, their relationship now is spikey and wounded.

-I thank God and my cold blood, I am of your humour for that.

I'd rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me.

-What they're doing is trying to figure out how to be in the same room as each other, and they don't know how.

And so this sort of banter that goes back and forth goes fathoms deep.

It's years deep of history with them.

-God keep your ladyship still in that mind, save some gentleman or other shall 'scape a predestinate scratched face.

-Scratching could not make it worse, an 'twere such a face as yours were.

-There was a time where we wanted to feel, in that scene, in that opening scene, like we were both the most hard done by by that situation, and it is their fault that we are both like this.

-When I played Beatrice in 2010 at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in L.A., my Benedick was the actor Tom Irwin.

I think we're very right for the parts.

I think he's smart and a little bit cranky.

-Thank you, thank you.

-And she is ruining everything with her "wit."

She's impossible be with because of her -- You know what I mean?

-He's an ass, and he's a showoff and tries to be man's man and God's gift to women or what have you.

But underneath all of that, there's a real vulnerability and a kind of loneliness to it that I thought, "This will be fun."

-And being lonely and longing for each other.

-Yeah.

Whatever happened when they first met, whatever it was, it was haunting.

-Yeah.

-And he couldn't let go of it.

I think he's threatened by how smart she is and probably smarter than he is.

♪♪ -So where did Shakespeare get the inspiration to write this smart, wisecracking woman?

♪♪ Paul Edmondson from the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust has invited me to Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon.

It's the church where Shakespeare and members of his family are buried.

He wants to show me the grave of Shakespeare's eldest daughter, Susannah.

♪♪ -One of my favorite epitaphs of any is that of Susannah Hall, Susannah Shakespeare, because it says, "Witty above her sex."

And it's that word witty, Helen, which, just, I see in it Beatrice and the whole host of Shakespeare's heroines.

So by calling her witty, we're also being reminded of all of Shakespeare wit -- "wit" at this time meaning intelligence as well as sense of humor.

-Is your sense that the women in Shakespeare's life inspired these characters, or what do you think the connection is?

-I think the women in Shakespeare's life were a pretty strong lot who could look after themselves, thanks very much.

And, you know, perhaps maybe Shakespeare tried out some of the female speeches with the members of his own family, very likely.

Other members of Shakespeare's family acted.

Edmond his brother was an actor.

-Right, the family business.

-And one of my favorite comments about Beatrice is, "I love Beatrice 'cause she says most of all what you wish you'd say yourself."

-Yes, absolutely.

-And that's what we mean by wit.

That's what we mean by being witty above one's sex.

♪♪ -Wherever she comes from, Beatrice has become an audience favorite, and the role has appealed to all of the greatest actors.

♪♪ Dame Maggie's Smith's performance was long thought to have been lost by the BBC, but a copy was recently found at the Library of Congress in Washington, and it's just been restored.

-I pray you, is Signior Mountanto returned from the wars or no?

-I know none of that name, lady.

-My cousin means Signior Benedick of Padua.

-Ah, he's returned, and he's as pleasant as he ever was.

-I pray you, how many hath he killed and eaten in these wars?

But indeed, how many hath he killed?

For I promised to eat all of his killing.

-Oh, my God.

She's just perfect in every way.

As Maggie Smith's performance demonstrates, when Shakespeare created Beatrice, he wrote a groundbreaking character, a new woman for the English stage.

-By my troth, niece, thou wilt never get thee a husband, if thou be so shrewd of thy tongue.

-For the which blessing I am at him on my knees every morning and evening.

Lord, I could not endure a husband with a beard on his face.

[ Groans ] I'd rather lie in the woollen.

[ Chuckles ] -What's striking is the extraordinary loquacity of Beatrice.

She never stops talking A respectable woman was supposed to keep silent in public.

Beatrice certainly isn't like that.

-He that hath a beard is more than a youth.

He that hath no beard is less than a man.

He that is more than a youth, I am not for him.

He that is less than a man, he is not for me.

Therefore, I will hire myself out for sixpence a day as the virgin in the proverb.

-She talks about sex and about sexual choices that she wants to make.

Women are not supposed to have any choice or any desire in this matter.

-"Oh, get you to heaven, Beatrice.

Get you to heaven.

Here's no place for you maids."

-So for Shakespeare's audience, she's breaking the mold.

She's smashing a verbal glass ceiling.

♪♪ -The last time the modern Globe Theatre staged a traditional production of "Much Ado about Nothing" was in 2011.

♪♪ This theater was designed to look and work exactly like the theater in Shakespeare's time.

And I want to meet some of the people who were involved in that production.

♪♪ -What's brilliant about this space is that it's not like an indoor theater or a theater with a roof or theater with lights.

And the audience just love that direct contact.

And the audience is, like, such a great resource in this space that you'd be foolish not to harness that.

-I would just feel terribly worried about them being bored if they're standing on their feet.

Do you know what I mean?

You're always a little worried.

-Yeah.

You've got to be loud enough.

Your voice work has got to be strong.

Your kind of sense of physicality has got to be really present.

But ultimately, once you've done all of that work, then it's over to Shakespeare himself.

-Perhaps we should remind ourselves that "Much Ado" starts out as the story of a young couple, Claudio and Hero.

And the love-struck Claudio probably unwisely turns to his best friend Benedick for some help and advice.

-Benedick, didst thou note the daughter of Signior Leonato?

-I noted her not, but I looked on her.

-Is she not a modest young lady?

[ Laughter ] -Do you question me, as an honest man should do, for my simple true judgment, or would you have me speak after my custom, as being a professed tyrant to their sex?

-With Claudio, you've got a guy who is brilliant at war.

And suddenly, he's in this world of Messina, which is the opposite of that.

And then coupled with that, he then falls in love.

And for him more than any of the others, even, I think, it's a bigger step into the unknown.

-Thou thinkest I am in sport.

I pray thee tell me truly how thou likest her.

-Would you buy her, that you enquire after her?

-Can the world buy such a jewel?

-Yea, and a case to put it into.

-In mine eyes, she is the sweetest lady that ever I looked on.

-Benedick's feeling elbowed out, actually.

Claudio is no longer the chum he thought he had.

He was a good soldier.

He was a, you know, guy to go and have a pint with.

Now he's not interested in any of that.

He's only interested in Hero.

-I hope you have no intent to turn hus-- hu-h-husband.

Have you?

-I would scarce trust myself, though I had sworn to the contrary, if Hero would be my wife.

-Is't come to this?

[ Laughter ] -This conversation does give Benedick a chance to get onto one of his favorite subjects.

-He's very vocal on his views about women.

And those come from fear -- fear of commitment, fear of women, of not understanding women, of not quite knowing how to behave around women.

-That a woman conceived me, I thank her.

That she brought me up, I likewise give her most humble thanks.

But all women shall pardon me.

I shall do myself the right to trust none.

-I don't think that Benedick hates women, but he's cynical about the idea that other people have of marriage, and of what life should be.

I think that, a little bit like Beatrice, he doesn't want to be like everybody else.

-And the fine is, for which I may go the finer, I will live a bachelor.

-I will see thee, ere I die, look pale with love.

-With anger, with sickness, or with hunger, my lord, not with love.

[ Laughter ] -And Beatrice, too, is clear that the last thing she wants is a husband.

-Well, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband.

-Not till God make men of some other metal than earth.

Would it not grieve a woman to be overmastered with a piece of valiant dust?

-I think her experience of men is incredibly limited, so she's taken one isolated incident, a very particular relationship with Benedick, and made it general.

That's her pain, and I think the way she has dealt with her pain is to protect herself.

It's all men, and it's love, and it's dangerous.

-Would it not grieve a woman to be overmastered with a piece of valiant dust, to make an account of her life to a clod of wayward marl?

No, uncle, I'll none.

Adam's sons are my brethren, and, truly, I hold it a sin to match in my kindred.

-I don't think she's really anti-man.

What's really going on is that she's in love with Benedick, so she's got to make it very, very clear to everybody who listens that she really can't stand the sight of any men at all, and she particularly hates men, "by the way, and did I tell you how much I hate men?

Because I really hate men, and just the last thing in the world I want to do is have any man come anywhere near me at all.

They drive me all completely nuts, and did I tell you how much I hate men?"

You sort of begin to think, "Well, what's really going on?"

-His grace hath made the match, and all grace say Amen to it!

-Amen!

-Amen!

-By the beginning of Act II, Hero and Claudio do get together.

And almost immediately, preparations are made for the marriage of the tongue-tied lovers.

-Speak, count, 'tis your cue.

[ Laughter ] -Silence is the perfectest... herald of joy.

-So, in Shakespeare's Sicilian villa, we have one couple about to get married and another couple who almost certainly never will.

But Shakespeare is about to turn all this on its head.

-It's a very interesting world of a household that seems to be perfectly ordinary.

And yet underneath the surface, there's all of this plotting and counter-plotter and manipulation.

-You have this wonderful, sunny world of "Much Ado About Nothing" -- frivolity and parties and dressing up and men and women flirting with each other.

And then you just have this injection of pure evil.

♪♪ -The play is about to get really complicated.

And to achieve that, Shakespeare falls back on a device as old as theater itself.

♪♪ Every play has a bad guy.

But instead of taking pages and pages and pages to figure out that the bad guy is the bad guy, in this play, the bad guy comes out and says, "I am a plain-dealing villain."

Done.

-But I am a plain-dealing villain.

-It must not be denied but I am a plain-dealing villain.

-But I am a plain-dealing villain.

-In this world of romance, comedy, and humor, there is a Machiavellian character, a villain who wants to create trouble, a dark character by the name of Don John.

-So just as Claudio and Hero's friends think they have succeeded in bringing the couple together, Don John, the villain, will plot to drive them apart.

-What news, Borachio?

-I can give you intelligence of an intended marriage.

-Will it serve for any model to build mischief on?

What's he for a fool that betroths himself to unquietness?

-Marry, 'tis your brother's right hand.

-The most exquisite Claudio?

-Even he.

-For Don John, it's only about spoiling everything.

That's all that he wants to do.

-Come, let us thither.

This may prove food to my displeasure.

-We would call him a sociopath, because he has no interest at all in the feelings or fates of anybody in his world except himself.

And of course, the guys who work for him are completely in his thrall, so we have a little sociopathic gang at work.

♪♪ -Don John is about to hatch a truly dark and cruel plot to split up Hero and Claudio.

But Shakespeare with exquisite balance now allows Beatrice and Benedick's friends to hatch a lighthearted plot to bring them together.

♪♪ To do this, he creates two of his most famous scenes, classics of comic manipulation -- the so-called gulling scenes, named after the Old English verb "to gull," meaning to trick or to deceive.

The fun begins when Benedick decides to hide himself in the garden.

♪♪ -See you where Benedick hath hid himself?

♪♪ -Of course, he thinks he's hiding.

The others know exactly where he is.

And they're making sure that he hears everything they say.

-[ Loudly ] Come hither, Leonato!

What was it you told me of to-day, that your niece Beatrice was in love with Signior Benedick?

-The play is called "Much Ado About Nothing."

The way that the word "nothing" was pronounced in Shakespeare's time would have been "noting."

Noting suggests overhearing.

-You amaze me!

-Constantly, people are listening in on other people's conversations.

♪♪ -[ Loudly ] But are you sure that Benedick loves Beatrice so entirely?

-The overhearing is the absolute key to the play.

-So says the prince and my new-trothed lord.

♪♪ -Are you sure that Benedick loves Beatrice so entirely?

-So says the prince and my new-trothed lord.

-And did they bid you tell her of it, madam?

-They did entreat me to acquaint her of it.

-There I am, hiding.

I'm hearing these two girls talking about me as if I'm not there, and they're saying some whole truths.

They're talking about how I'm always against men, how I insult men, and how tough I am, and how heartless I am.

And it hurts.

-She cannot love, nor take no shape nor project of affection, she is so self-endeared.

-Such a brilliant comic device, because they're both being gulled into hearing each other's real thoughts.

-Hath she made her affection known to Benedick?

-No, my lord, and swears she never will.

That's her torment.

-I will go to Benedick and counsel him to fight against his passion.

And, truly, I'll devise some honest slanders to stain my cousin with.

-Or are they real thoughts?

They're not quite sure, but they desperately want to believe it's true.

-"Shall I," says she, "that hath so oft encountered him with scorn, write to him that I love him?"

-This says she now when she's beginning to write to him.

-These are characters of great pride.

They take pride in not being in love.

It's only when they get the illusion that the other one is in love with them that they can then acknowledge their own feelings.

-It seems her affections have their full bent.

Love me?

Why, it must be requited.

-What fire is in mine ears?

Can this be true?

-When Beatrice learns or thinks she learns that Benedick loves her, the whole part turns, and all of Beatrice's swagger comes undone, and this tiny, little speech carries so much.

-"What fire is in mine ears?

Can this be true?"

This is like -- It's, like, straight from -- She's in love, and then, "Maybe we'll get married, and then we'll have a beautiful house, and, oh, it'll be a white wedding, and --" You know, I mean, she's completely -- Whoo!

She's -- She's intoxicated by the whole -- But, of course, it's what she's always wanted.

-And, Benedick, love on.

-And it's all in a small amount of lines.

It's a huge moment for this woman.

And at this moment, Beatrice is on stage alone, for the only time in the whole play.

-What fire is in mine ears?

Can this be true?

-And she has just 10 lines of verse to play with.

-Stand I condemn'd for pride and scorn so much?

-It's a challenge for any actor.

-Contempt, farewell, and maiden pride, adieu!

No glory lives behind the back of such.

-I was having a tough time with the speech.

I tried lots of different things.

And then I looked down and caught the eye of a girl who was standing about as far away as you are standing to me.

And she had an expression on her face that she was completely with me.

I don't know whose hand reached out first to whose, but, anyway, we held each other's hand.

That moment of physical contact -- Suddenly, the speech unlocked and made beautiful and perfect sense.

-And, Benedick, love on.

I will requite thee... ...taming my wild heart to thy loving hand.

[ Sniffling ] [ Laughter ] If thou dost love, my kindness shall incite thee to bind our loves up into a holy band.

For others say thou dost deserve, and I... believe it!

[ Laughter ] -She can do anything, Eve Best.

She can do anything.

-[ Sighs, clears throat ] -When Benedick's told that Beatrice loves him, he, too, is tempted into verse.

-[ Off-key ] ♪ O god of love ♪ [ Laughter ] -But Shakespeare makes Benedick write a really bad song.

-♪ That sits above ♪ ♪ Who knows me ♪ [ Laughter ] -Gradually, you do become aware that the audience were finding it very funny, so you do start to respond and get annoyed that they're laughing at your singing.

-♪ Who knows me ♪ ♪ How pitiful ♪ -It was a very personal moment, because it was revealing something about him that was very private, and I think the audience enjoyed sharing that.

-♪ I deserve ♪ -We are now being tantalized by the prospect of Beatrice and Benedick finally getting together.

-Yea, signior, and depart when you bid me.

-So we're all set up for a happy ending, and Shakespeare chooses that moment to say no.

It's time for Don John to put his plot into practice.

On the night before the planned wedding, he tells Claudio that Hero is not the innocent virgin she seems.

-What's the matter?

-Means your lordship to be married to-morrow?

-You know he does.

-I know not that, when he knows what I know.

-If there be any impediment -- -The lady is disloyal.

-Who, Hero?

-Even she -- Leonato's Hero, your Hero, every man's Hero.

♪♪ -We cannot overstate today how catastrophic sexual slander is for a woman.

What Don Jon sets up, in forcing Claudio to believe that Hero has been sexually active, is catastrophic in Elizabethan terms.

There is no greater disaster that could befall a woman than to be or to be considered unchaste.

-Wonder not till further warrant.

Go but with me to-night.

You shall see her chamber window entered, even the night before her wedding-day.

If you love her then, well... to-morrow wed her.

-Don John sets up a sadistic deception.

-If you dare not trust that you see... -He stages a scene for Claudio to witness in which someone disguised as Hero sleeps with another man.

Shakespeare makes this happen offstage.

The audience doesn't see it.

-Hup, hup, hup, hup, hup, hup!

Hyah, hyah... -But what we do see are the forces of law and order in Messina, who could disrupt the plot -- Dogberry, Verges, and the Watch.

-Hyah!

-You can see Shakespeare saying to himself, "Right, I need some light relief."

-Bear you the lanthorn.

Bear you the lanthorn.

[ Audience aw's ] -They're a bit like the Keystone Cops in a way.

The forces of law and order are completely unreliable, totally shambolic, can barely string a sentence together.

But even so, they find out that Claudio has been fooled.

[ Men shout indistinctly ] -For all their incompetence, they do arrest the plotters.

-Let us obey you to come with us.

♪♪ -But it's too late.

By now, Claudio has been convinced that Hero has been unfaithful, and this is the morning of their wedding.

♪♪ Dogberry and the Watch set off to try and tell Leonato what has happened.

-Brief, I pray you, for you see 'tis a busy time for me.

-Marry, this it is, sir.

[ Pops cheek ] "Hooray."

-Yes, in truth it is, sir.

-It's a very Shakespearean ploy to put you just on the verge of an "if only" moment.

The play brings us very close to Dogberry and Verges' just telling Leonato what happened.

-One word, sir!

Our watch, sir, have indeed [Grunts] comprehended two -- "Aah" -- aspicious persons, and we would have them this morning examined before your worship.

-And because they can't spit it out articulately, Leonato in exasperation says, "Oh, you just examine the characters yourself, because I've got a wedding to go to."

-Uh, take their examination yourself and bring it me.

I am now in great haste, as may appear unto you.

-Dogberry and the Watch totally fail to inform the authorities of the plot they've uncovered.

So what follows is... maybe the most uncomfortable wedding in any play ever.

[ Tambourine playing ] The scene begins beautifully.

You might even think that it's all going to be all right.

But you know that it isn't.

Claudio believes what Don John has told him -- that the woman he loves and is supposed to marry has completely deceived him.

He's being torn apart.

-He's brewed up all these feelings of anger and rage and frustration now he's learnt what Hero's done to him.

And then he's met with Hero and suddenly has to look into her eyes when they meet at center stage.

♪♪ -He's had this kind of image planted in his head, and then to be faced with the woman, but just to have that back-and-forth.

♪♪ -There, Leonato, take her back again!

Give not this rotten orange to your friend!

-It just flips continually between foul and fair, beautiful and ugly, tainted and pure.

And he's leaping between the two, between the love that he felt in his heart and the rage that he felt in his gut.

-You seem to me as Dian in her orb, as chaste as is the bud ere it be blown.

But you are more intemperate in your blood than Venus, or those pamper'd animals that rage in savage sensuality!

-Is my lord well, that he doth speak so wide?

-Sweet prince... -When Claudio perverts a wedding ceremony into a shaming, I think it absolutely shocks us all.

The first time you see it, you just are in the emotion of the moment, and often, you just hate Claudio.

-Her blush is guiltiness, not modesty.

-What do you mean, my lord?

-Not to be married, not to knit my soul to an approved wanton.

-You have to tread quite a fine line of being honest with what's written on the page and the brutality of what he does to Hero, 'cause it is brutal.

-Would you not swear, all you that see her, that she were a maid, by these exterior shows?

But she is none.

-It's like a stoning or something.

-She knows the heat of a luxurious bed.

-[ Gasps ] -It's violent.

It's really violent.

♪♪ -How now, cousin!

Wherefore sink you down?

-Her world just kind of crumbles, and it's like there is nothing -- It's like the air's taken out of her, and that's why she faints.

-How doth the lady?

-Dead, I think.

-Dead, I think.

-Dead, I think.

Help, uncle!

-The idea of death in the midst of a wedding ceremony, it's deeply, deeply shocking.

-Claudio has already stormed out of the church.

Only Benedick remains with the family.

♪♪ Hero does not die, but she is disgraced, and she is taken into hiding.

♪♪ So Benedick is left alone with Beatrice.

♪♪ And it leads to the scene we've all been waiting for.

-Lady Beatrice, have you wept all this while?

-Yea.

[ Sniffles ] And I will weep a while longer.

-I will not desire that.

-You have no reason.

I do it freely.

-Surely I do believe your fair cousin is wronged.

-Ah!

-She's so passionate about her cousin, about what's just happened to her cousin, she's ready to kill.

"If only I were a man, I could do it."

-[ Sighs ] How much might the man deserve of me that would right her?

-Is there any way to show such friendship?

-A very even way, but no such friend.

-There's this tempest in a teacup of her heart going on.

She's so conflicted.

-May a man do it?

-It is a man's office... ...but not yours.

-And then they're suddenly speaking very, very quietly to each other.

-I do love nothing in the world so well as you.

Is not that strange?

-As strange as... ...the thing I know not.

It were as possible for me to say I loved nothing so well as you.

But believe me not.

And yet I lie not.

I...confess nothing, nor deny nothing.

-You've got love and hate absolutely, you know, in a tight embrace in this scene.

-I protest...

I love thee.

-Why, then, God forgive me.

-What offense, sweet Beatrice?

-You have stayed me in a happy hour.

I was about to protest I loved you.

-And do it with all thy heart.

-[ Sighs ] I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest.

-I remember thinking of the audience going through that lovely moment of, "Ahh, at last.

It's going to be the end of the play now.

Going to be lovely."

-Come, bid me do anything for thee.

-"Tell me.

I'll do anything for you.

What can I do for you?"

It's this, whoosh, this huge wave that has broken, and then she just says... -Kill Claudio.

-And it came like a razor blade.

It's [Imitates blade slicing] -[ Inhales sharply ] -Well, I mean, it just knocks the wind out of his sails.

It's his greatest friend.

-[ Sighs ] Not for the wide world.

-You kill me to deny it.

Farewell.

-Oh, tarry, sweet Beatrice.

-No, I am gone.

-Benedick is going to have to make a choice between his blood brother Claudio and his beloved Beatrice.

-Think you in your soul that Count Claudio hath wronged Hero?

-Yea, as sure as I have a thought or a soul.

-He loves her so much that... she convinces him that's the right thing to do, and he decides to do it.

-I will challenge him.

I will kiss your hand, and so I leave you.

♪♪ ♪♪ -There's been three acts of merriment and flirtation and cleverness, and it's a stunning shift in tone.

And I remember feeling like, "How do we come back from this?"

♪♪ At the beginning of Act V, we are much closer to tragedy than comedy.

♪♪ Claudio has been told that Hero is dead of a broken heart, killed by slander.

And Benedick is out for revenge.

♪♪ But Benedick will not have to kill Claudio.

The men arrested confess their role in Don John's plot and inform Claudio that he was indeed deceived.

Hero is entirely innocent.

-Don John incensed me to slander the Lady Hero, how you were brought into the orchard and saw me woo Margaret in Hero's garments, how you disgraced her, when you should marry her.

My villainy they have upon record.

-Claudio does still think Hero is dead.

♪♪ Effectively, he has killed the woman he loved.

Can he atone for what he has done?

This is a dark and dramatic moment.

♪♪ But "Much Ado" is not a tragedy.

It's a comedy.

So to get to the ending the audience is hoping for, Shakespeare comes up with a ludicrously comic plot to contrive a resolution.

-To-morrow morning come you to my house, and since you could not be my son-in-law... be yet my nephew!

My brother hath a daughter... [ Laughter ] ...almost the copy of my child that's dead... [ Laughter ] ...and she alone is heir to both of us.

Give her the right you should have given her cousin, and so dies my revenge.

♪♪ -This is, of course, yet another deception.

The new bride, of course, will be Hero.

But since Claudio still believes her to be dead, father Leonato insists that before the new wedding can take place, Claudio must first visit Hero's tomb and there make a public declaration of her innocence.

-There has to be some real penance.

Shakespeare gives us ritual.

He gives us a public recitation so that this man who has publicly shamed Hero can be the one who publicly turns that shame to fame.

♪♪ -Once he realizes that this woman he accused of such ghastly things is innocent, there's something inside him that breaks a little further.

He's killed an innocent woman.

-Much as I love "Much Ado About Nothing," I'm never entirely satisfied by the ending.

It seems to me that the character of Claudio hasn't really undergone a sufficiently strong journey of redemption to merit the second chance that he gets.

-The ending of this play is very difficult for modern audiences, because it's hard to imagine a circumstance in which any contemporary female would take Claudio back after what he has done.

[ Bell tolling ] So how do we deal with that?

A production at the Globe had the actress of Hero lie on her own tomb under a veil so that she was in effect overhearing -- in a play about overhearing -- Claudio's penitence.

-"Done to death by slanderous tongues was the Hero that here lies.

Death, in guerdon of her wrongs, gives her fame which never dies.

So the life that died with shame lives in death with...glorious fame."

-She then became convinced of his sincerity and, in one way, gave her permission for Shakespeare's plot to continue.

[ Bell tolling ] [ Laughter ] -The time has come for the play's final deception.

Hero will be disguised as Leonato's niece rather than his daughter and will be offered as a bride for Claudio.

♪♪ But Claudio is not allowed to see this mysterious woman until he has formally agreed in front of everyone to marry her.

-When Claudio decides to accept an unknown wife, I think there's definitely a repentance there.

I think there's a conscious choice -- "This is the way I will go, and this is the way to repent, and this is the way to win back my soul in some way."

-Before this holy friar, I am your husband, if you like of me.

-And when I lived, I was your other wife.

And when you loved, you were my other husband.

-Another Hero!

-Nothing certainer.

One Hero died defiled, but I do live.

-Once Claudio realizes that Hero is alive or a Hero is still alive, and they're going to be together, and it's a happy ending for the two of them, there's a kind of huge mood shift, and it suddenly very quickly then becomes almost a party atmosphere.

♪♪ -Soft and fair, friar!

Which is Beatrice?

-So the only thing left is for Beatrice and Benedick to make it a double wedding.

And they almost blow it.

♪♪ [ Laughter ] -At the vital moment, Benedick makes the foolish mistake of asking Beatrice to say she loves him...in public.

-Do you not love me?

[ Chuckles ] -Why, no.

No more than reason.

-This is a way of being able to be, in public, still, the one who is loved, not the one that has to love.

So it's about making sure that you're the one who was loved first.

-Because you could have gone, "Which one is Beatrice?"

and she goes, "That's me.

What do you want?"

-"You know I love you, don't you?"

-Yeah, it could have been that.

-"So, will you marry me?"

Absolutely, yeah, but then you wouldn't love me so much if I did that.

[ Both laugh ] -Why, then your uncle and the prince and Claudio were deceived.

They swore you did.

-Do you not love me?

-Troth, no.

No more than reason.

-Why, then my cousin Margaret and Ursula are much deceived, for they did swear you did.

-They swore you were almost sick for me!

-They swore that you were well-nigh dead for me.

-'Tis no such matter.

Then you do not love me?

-No, truly, but in friendly recompense.

-All right.

-Fine.

-But the they're about to be betrayed by love poems they have secretly written about each other.

-And I'll be sworn upon it that he loves her, for here's a paper written in his hand, a halting sonnet of his own pure brain.

-No.

-Oh!

-No!

-And here's another, writ in my cousin's hand... -No!

No!

No, please!

-...stolen from her pocket, containing her affection unto Benedick!

[ Laughter ] -Beatrice and Benedick have thrived on their banter, on their argument, on their their sparring with each other.

How do you stop them from constantly quarrelling, teasing each other?

Well, the only way you could stop them is by making them kiss.

-Come, I will have thee.

But, by this light, I take thee for pity.

[ Laughter ] -I would not deny you.

But, by this good day, I yield upon great persuasion, and partly to save your life, for I was told you were in a consumption.

-Peace!

I will stop your mouth.

[ Cheers and applause ] ♪♪ [ Laughter ] [ Applause ] -Strike up, pipers!

♪♪ -There's no doubt about it that Beatrice and Benedick are one of the great Shakespearean couples.

They've become the paradigm.

♪♪ -I think we have to believe in the power of wit and independence.

There's something so seasoned and wise and mature about these lovers.

-Oh!

-Oh!

-Hey!

-You can be as smart and intelligent and as witty as you want, but until you open yourself to emotion and to risk, then none of it makes sense.

And that's what "Much Ado About Nothing" is about.

♪♪ -Whoo!

-Whoo!

-The two lovers who are sparring with each other but whom we know are really in love with each other -- It's a great comic theme.

It goes right the way down to the the great screwball comedies of the golden age of Hollywood.

♪♪ [ Cheers and applause ] -I was just asked by our friends, "Would I play it again?"

Which I would love to play it again, but am I old?

But in truth, I think they are older.

-Well, at what point do you cross a line?

-Yeah, I don't know.

-Can you do it in wheelchairs?

-[ Laughs ] -But there was something that you said to me really early on.

Like, what's there to lose?

-Who cares?

Yeah.

-Who cares?

-It's really true.

-You know?

Which is, when will I have an opportunity to play this role, and when will I have an opportunity to play opposite you, you know?

-Yeah, so fun.

-If it's a huge failure, let's go down in flames.

-Yeah.

Completely.

So we should do it again.

I would love to play Beatrice again.

She's very special.

And so is enduring message of "Much Ado About Nothing" -- that however old you may be, when it comes to love, you'll never win unless you're prepared to take the risk of losing everything.

"Much Ado" is a story about trying to find love, about being open to love.

What's not to like?

-Next time... -"The Merchant of Venice" is hardly what we see as a comedy today.

-...F. Murray Abraham explores one of Shakespeare's most vilified characters.

-If you prick us, do we not bleed?

If you tickle us, do we not laugh?

-Shylock is an outsider, an immigrant, an alien.

-It's a play for our time.

-"The Merchant of Venice" with F. Murray Abraham.

-Shh.

-Next time on "Shakespeare Uncovered."

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -"Shakespeare Uncovered" Series 3 is available on DVD.

Series 1 and 2 are also available.

To order, visit shop.pbs.org or call 1-800-PLAY-PBS.

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