Much Ado About Nothing

Directed by Mia Ruppert

Love is in the air on the terrace of Seniora Leonato’s villa in Messina. The sun is hot and the drinks are ice cold. But in between jazz and rock ‘n’ roll, the radio is spreading rumours of betrayals and secret affairs between co-stars. Catch glimpses of passionate infatuation, a long-standing battle of wits, crumbling friendships, and parties going on all through the night. Could these secret rendez-vous destroy careers and reputations? Will meddling plots of friends and family lead to happy matrimony? Based on William Shakespeare’s 1600 comedy “Much Ado About Nothing”, director Mia Ruppert transports the classic, complicated love stories of Benedick and Beatrice, and Hero and Claudio into the ranks of 1950s Hollywood royalty. It is a decade marked by the Hayes Code and McCarthyism, where those in the public eye have to constantly put on an act because even outside of the film sets and galas, a camera could always be lurking around the corner, hiding in the bushes to capture scandals of a romantic or even — gasp — communist kind! A setting that seems tailored to this Shakespearean love-story, fuelled with tricks, gossip and deception.