Love's Labour's Lost & Love's Labour's Won: Special Edition

The Bard staged in Downton Abbey style is both the great attraction and potential downfall of director Christopher Luscombe's 2015 Royal Shakespeare Company double bill. Because Luscombe added a substantial helping of 1920s musical theatre to the mix here, the combination might easily have backfired, but instead proves to be exceptionally agreeable. The inspiration is to treat Much Ado About Nothing (presented here as Love's Labour Won), a tale of a squabbling couple forced to confess their love through trickery, as a sequel to Love's Labour's Lost, which is about friends who vow to abjure romance for scholarship, only to have their commitment sorely tested. Both plays are performed by the same cast (although the characters' names differ), updated to the early 1900s (the first takes place immediately before World War I; the second in the war's aftermath), and set at an elegant country estate. Some of the dialogue, moreover, has been transformed by Nigel Hess into songs sometimes reminiscent of Gilbert and Sullivan and occasionally of Noel Coward, which are nicely handled by the expert cast that is headed by Edward Bennett as Berowne/Benedick and Michelle Terry as Rosaline/Beatrice, with Nick Haverson adding lowbrow humor as Costard/Dogberry. Even those unconvinced by the argument that Much Ado About Nothing can serve as a sequel to the earlier Love's Labour Lost will likely be disarmed by this splendid mounting, with a 20th-century setting and operetta-like approach that prove to be surprisingly persuasive. Extras include audio commentaries, interviews, behind-the-scenes featurettes, and a cast gallery. Highly recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (F. Swietek)