Love’s Labour’s Lost / Much Ado About Nothing review – breezy double bill brings out the best in both

Braboeuf Manor, Guildford
Elegantly stitching the plays into two parts of the same continuing story, Tom Littler’s sunny al fresco productions play every possible tragicomic note

Two Shakespearean comedies dated to the last decade of the 16th century each seem to lack something. Love’s Labour’s Lost (c 1595) feels in need of a sequel, ending abruptly, with the usual climactic marriages suddenly deferred to the future. Much Ado About Nothing (c 1598) could use a prequel: there is clearly a tantalising backstory to the harsh sparring between Beatrice and Benedick.

By double-billing the plays, director Tom Littler explores the scholarly hypothesis (well advanced by HR Woudhuysen) that they may be, in Hollywood terms, parts 1 and 2. Some believe that a Shakespeare play, Love’s Labour’s Won, listed in documents but now missing, may have been Much Ado, which contains a possible Shakespeare in-joke about things seeming clearer “when you have seen the sequel.”