If recent productions are anything to go by, the RSC of 2025 season will be characterised as the summer of great spectacle. And having witnessed the Danish royal family rolling to their ends in the murky depths of an unforgiving sea earlier in the year, we are now invited to watch the blinging new money of Messina dissolve social media post by social media post.
It’s hard to feel sympathy for the sorts of people who use Married at First Sight as an instruction manual for finding true love
On entering the auditorium, a stunning multi-media set design by Jon Bausor assaults the senses, transporting one immediately to the high-octane atmosphere of a football stadium. A huge digital screen reads MESSINA FC 1 (85’ CLAUDIO), MADRID FC 2; there is a tunnel leading towards the pitch; lockers; hangers; plunge pool; a press table replete with sponsored drinks; a PR screen; TV camera; and advertising side bars: whilst piped cheers and whoops remind us of the Covid-era Match of the Day. As the house lights fade down, the commentary fades up.
It is a brave conceit by director Michael Longhurst, and whilst one which perhaps does not seem immediately commensurate with one of Shakespeare’s most beloved comedies, has sufficient textual evidence to generate a credible interpretation and illuminate some of the key themes within a more contemporary commentary. The words themselves are butchered with alacrity; but with an audacity and intelligence which actually grates far less than some of the more sly linguistic insinuations we have seen in recent shows.
Toxic masculinity, Primark WAGS, strutting little men with their brains in their toes, reputational damage, jealousy, revenge porn… it’s all part of Longhurst’s vision, and it makes for a visually engrossing piece which owes a great deal to the clever and deliciously detailed projections of Tal Rosner.
The action switches between the football ground and team owner Leonato’s villa, where hijinx and sexual shenanigans are the order of the day. Almost everyone is at it in this world of shabby decadence: even – perhaps especially - Leonato himself (a slimy Peter Forbes whose characterisation owes more than a little to DC’s The Penguin). Forbes creates a highly believable patriarch of a monstrously shallow dynasty: avuncular warbling of Sinatra one minute, enjoying a cheeky grope the next; superficially loving, but with a core of misogyny he cannot shake.
Here, Leonato’s brother Antonio becomes his wife Antonia, which is an interesting although under-explored move which fundamentally fails to add anything to the narrative. Not that Tanya Franks - all shoulder pads and barely-contained décolletage – gives anything less than pure oomph: a dazzling audition for a Scouse concept Lady Macbeth if ever there was one. The union opens up a contrived subplot in which Leonato is seen to preach family values without adhering to them himself: his grubby little affair with groupie Margaret igniting her reasoning for involvement in the plot which threatens to collapse their gilded lives. But this then fizzles into nothing, which does beg the question: why? Unfortunately, this is an ongoing motif within the piece: characters come and go with little exposition or justification; their assumed roles within the Messina hierarchy relegated to just a footnote in the programme. Villains have no motivation, bystanders little connection to the action. The most jarring example of this is Beatrice being introduced as a sports presenter: initially somewhat convincing but soon disproved by her overt verbal warring with Benedick. Despite their personal history, would this clever, funny woman really act so unprofessionally towards the captain of a winning football team which happens to be owned by her uncle? It seems unlikely.
As Beatrice, Freema Agyeman is punchy and energised, commanding the stage in a beautiful palette of greens which unfailingly pulls focus from the frothiness of the other women on stage. It is a great shame that this shrewish stridency is only ever punctuated by a frustrated sulkiness: neither of which quite allows the merry maid born under a dancing star to showcase the joie de vivre for which she is universally loved and respected. In this iteration, it is no shock that Beatrice exhorts Benedick to ‘kill Claudio’: the only surprise is that she is not rolling up her sleeves to do it herself.
And as Benedick, Nick Blood gamely showcases the cockish behaviour suggested by the text rather than the roguish charm more typically demonstrated. Happily however, once he has taken a dip in the ornamental pool, he has successfully not only rearranged his tragic haircut and Estuary accent, but also his philosophy on marriage.
One of the most successful performances is Daniel Adeosun as Claudio, who conjures the silly little boy whose petulance and selfishness disbar him from becoming the man he thinks he is. Within this world, it seems entirely likely that his wounded ego would react with the cruelty demanded by the script; just as it becomes possible that Hero would hitch her marital wagon to an Insta-worthy sporting star in such a preposterously short space of time. Eleanor Worthington-Cox works hard to draw the sort of silly little girl who finds her perfect match in a silly little boy. This Hero is a two-bit Barbie girl who clatters about on silver platforms and Quality-Street-wrapped inspired couture; a Hero who uploads her vocals to TikTok for likes; a Hero with all the depth of a Big Brother live audience standing in a puddle.
The trouble is that the superficiality of concept makes it hard to care for any of these people. Like: really hard. Antonia is being cheated on: but she is so arch and distant that we feel neither guilt by complicity nor compassion. Claudio has been duped: but the instigator is reduced to such a cipher that we blame Claudio’s fickle credulity rather than Don John’s machinations. Margaret is as much a victim as a villain: but then again, her readiness to suck off someone else’s husband got her into this mess in the first place. You get the picture.
Perhaps this is the point. These are people who think Live, Laugh, Love slogans are acceptable art. Who want their own clothing line for Zara. Who have already applied for Too Hot to Handle on Netflix. These are not people who will sit around and discuss trade tariffs and the fallout of global conflict. They have two goals in life: sex and er… well… goals. Freed from the fetters of intellect or empathy; they are living their best lives in a vulgar fever dream of never-ending karaoke and cocktails. I Did It My Way croons Leonato, and it seems that everyone else is fully subscribed to that same principle. There’s flesh. There’s flesh everywhere. The dresses are all a little too tight, the necklines a little too precarious, and the muscles a little too demonstrated. But somehow, it works. And these ridiculous people make the pantomime of the last few scenes make more sense than a more thoughtful concept might: we absolutely believe that this Hero would sack off respect and trust for a balloon arch and half a million likes on social media, and that Claudio is (in)constant enough to believe slanders about his intended, mourn her death for five minutes, and then marry a cousin alleged to look a bit like her.
But living by social media brings its own unique suite of injuries: and when Hero is falsely accused of spending the night before her wedding with company, the videography and message of the piece really comes into its own. The cod-psychology of internet warriors flashes across the auditorium: some supportive, some damning. Seeing anonymised declamations such as “Been waiting for this since she turned legal” or that she ‘deserved it’ remind us that Shakespeare is for all ages, and that slut-shaming has changed little in four and a quarter centuries. It is a powerful moment: the unwanted attentions of the weighing in on a private tragedy and magnifying the fragility of female autonomy.
Is it any wonder, then, that these women simper about the place barely clothed when their entire currency lies in their sexual attractiveness? This reductive trope – dangerously close to the surface in our own lives - is amplified by the perhaps deliberate lack of chemistry between both sets of lovers. For just as noble marriages were primarily business deals at the time of writing, so are they a transaction here: clicks for romance, clicks for divorce, and the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.
All in all, this is an engaging and occasionally thought-provoking at times version of a classic. But ultimately, it’s hard to feel sympathy for the sorts of people who use Married at First Sight as an instruction manual for finding true love.
