There are two things we can always count on. Firstly, Shakespeare will never go out of style. Secondly, the battle of the sexes will always rear its stubborn head. 

Yep, despite centuries of social progression (and regression) and major leaps forward for the rights of women, queers, and marginalised folks which have bestowed us with the potential to boundlessly dream and design beautiful lives for ourselves that are free from the patriarchy’s shackles, attitudes about the state of (straight) romance have reached pessimistic new lows. Women are justifiably done, and frustrated men are being led down alt-right rabbit holes by dodgy pied pipers. 

Where will we ever find hope for heterosexual love? Well, dear reader, we can look to the Bard. 

Alison Bell and Fayssal Bazzi in MTC’s Much Ado About Nothing. Photo © Gregory Lorenzutti

Melbourne Theatre Company is playing Cupid by closing out their 2025 season with a fun and fresh take on Shakespeare’s original romantic comedy, Much Ado About Nothing – and it’s just the feel-good boost we need to send off what has been an incredibly long year.

Award-winning actors Alison Bell (The Letdown) and Fayssal Bazzi (Stateless) lead a strong ensemble cast as the endlessly quarrelling frenemies (and possible ex-lovers) Beatrice and Benedick. If this pair could just stop talking at each other for a moment, they might realise that they’re desperately in love with one another. (Everyone around them can certainly tell, and they will resort to deception to make it happen.)

Meanwhile, young lovers Claudio (Remy Heremaia) and Hero (Miela Anich) have very little to say to one another. (Hopefully this communicative impasse doesn’t get in the way of their not-at-all-rushed marriage…)

An actor perhaps best known for his more “serious” roles, it’s a joy to watch Bazzi in rom-com mode. There’s a youthful purity to his whole-bodied reactions, and chemistry enough to demonstrate the timeless charm of the pair’s clever repertoire.

But arguably, this is Bell’s show. Her Beatrice is superb. She nails the delivery of every witty verbal barb, every languorous eye roll. The inelegant way her intellectual armour falls away upon the revelation that Benedick holds her in his affections. You can practically feel the heat of the heavy tears that bubble up from her soul, such is the tangibility of the devastation and rage that overcomes her when her beloved cousin, Hero, is humiliated at the altar by the misguided Claudio. (Which, side note, might be a cautionary tale about the dark side of falling for the labrador-like himbo?)

Alison Bell and Fayssal Bazzi in MTC’s Much Ado About Nothing. Photo © Gregory Lorenzutti

Director Mark Wilson is known for his radical Shakespeare adaptations, and this slick staging is a testament to the simple joy of seeing a good script (that holds up considerably well, for something penned in the late 1500s) in the hands of a good director and a well-oiled production team.

Anna Cordingley’s curtainless, wingless, open-plan set design grants the audience an insider’s view of the backstage ballet that would usually go unseen – a silent formation of crewmembers weaves through the action in their stage blacks, assisting with on-stage costume changes, manoeuvring big electric fans, throwing fistfulls of leaves and so forth. The staging feels reminiscent of Kip Williams’ cine-theatre trilogy (minus the cine bit). While it would’ve been nice to see this utilised more, especially in the first act, it is a delightful meta-theatrical feature. 

But the most confusing element of this staging (at least for this critic) was the artwork on the blue façade of the two-storey house that stands at the centre of this set: a blown-up, close-up image framing the face of a glamorous blonde woman that looks like it could have been ripped from the glossy cover of a noughties magazine. That is, I was confused, until I did my homework. 

MTC’s Much Ado About Nothing. Photo © Gregory Lorenzutti

Cordingley’s design is directly inspired by St Kilda’s infamous Newman house. Commissioned by former AFL player and media personality Sam Newman and completed in 2001, the property’s headline-sparking exterior features a large picture of Pamela Anderson. Placing this domineering image so prominently on the stage not only embeds Shakespeare’s story in modern Melbourne, but it also speaks beautifully to the way this production seeks to subvert the themes of gender, property and power at play in the text.

Much like the revival of Pammy’s acting career – a moment that has us all rooting for the former Playboy model as she reclaims her agency in her middle-age – this production invites us to see the world and its inherent misogyny from a different, more humanistic angle. Kudos, MTC. 

There is no escaping that the women in this story live in a world where they are traded like property. However, the women of Much Ado embody a strong sense of personal agency and full-bodied wit (especially when it comes to Beatrice) that is somewhat subversive and wholeheartedly delightful, and this production brings this to the surface.

Meanwhile, the (male-coded) police officers featured in this story are played as absolute buffoons (which is a recurring theme in Shakespeare’s work – and it makes you wonder, was the Bard the first one to front up and say ACAB?…) 

If a line of Shakespearean dialogue goes over your head, it’s quite likely an old-timey dick joke (side note: you’ll find this and more unpicked in this brilliant YouTube video essay by Ladyknightthebrave). And true to fashion, this production thrusts away at the phallic humour – right down to the ridiculously oversized codpieces wielded by the male ensemble as part of the elaborate Elizabethan-style outfits which costume designer Karine Larché dresses them in for the party sequence. 

This delightful nonsense is possibly only outdone by a scene of hilariously explicit seduction between Margaret (Hero’s gentlewoman attendant, as played by Chanella Macri, who steals the show with every character she morphs into) and the rogue Borachio (as portrayed by Miela Anich in full drag king mode, sporting a mullet and polo shirt). Beginning with a vignette of Macri bathed in moonlight, standing on a balcony and loosely draped in a fluttering sheet, this act of passion doesn’t shy from a visceral tug job and a hot-blooded exchange of cunnilingus. It’s more action than your average MTC audience might bargain for, and it’s camp as tits (complimentary). 

With theatre often considered as a trivial pastime for the middle classes, it can be easy to forget that Shakespeare’s work was written for the everyman. And with his lines also so often delivered in such a stiff and sombre tone, it can also be easy to forget how freakin’ funny and silly so much of it still is.

As this buoyant production brilliantly attests, there is a timeless resonance to the themes explored here – and maybe, just maybe, it contains the magic to make you feel excited about love again.

Much Ado About Nothing plays at Southbank Theatre, Melbourne, until December 19.