Ramps on the Moon production of Much Ado About Nothing to open at the Crucible in Sheffield next week

When he announced his plan, there were those who questioned the financial wisdom of working his way through the canon. While the soul of the age and the greatest playwright to have lived, even Shakespeare didn’t hit the bullseye every time. Most of his work can still guarantee an audience 400 years later, but not every play is, to use modern parlance, a nailed-on banger.

One of the plays that does both, guarantees an audience and justifiably so, is Much Ado About Nothing. With the National Theatre currently staging a version of the play starring Katherine Parkinson and Sheffield Crucible opening a production the day before the National’s finishes, I’d be tempted to say that the rom-com is back in fashion were it not for the fact that it’s rarely out of it.

Much Ado is the play that famously attracts impressive leads to play the warring will-they-won’t-they couple at the heart of the story, Beatrice and Benedick. Played variously by Emma Thompson and Kenneth Branagh in the acclaimed 1993 film, by David Tennant and Catherine Tate in the West End in 2011, by Vanessa Redgrave and James Earl Jones at the Old Vic in 2013, it is a starry and storied list of actors who have insisted they would rather hear their dog bark at a crow then hear a man swear he loves her.

In Sheffield the actor getting the chance to utter the famous phrase is Daneka Etchells, taking on the role of Beatrice opposite Guy Rhys as Benedick.

Etchells is appearing in Sheffield for the first time, but it’s not her first encounter with the Bard. “I’ve done Shakespeare before. It is different doing Shakespeare, but once you understand the heightened poetic form of it, its content is just about people and relationships – and miscommunication, he loves that,” she says.

“Beatrice is a fiercely independent rejector of social convention. She’s a role I’ve always wanted to play, she’s so richly complex: a combination of a sharp mind, a quick wit and a tender, soft heart. I definitely relate to her – in fact, I’m discovering every day I relate to her in more ways than I can count.”

It is one of the secrets as to why Much Ado is one of the most performed and loved of Shakespeare’s romantic comedies. While The Taming of the Shrew is deeply problematic and The Winter’s Tale contains some awful treatment of the female characters, Much Ado has a seriously strong woman at its heart. The tragic Hero is terribly treated, but at least there is a Beatrice there fighting the feminist corner.

The play tells the story of Claudio and Hero, a young and deeply naive couple have fallen in love and are quickly engaged – a little too quickly for the likes of confirmed singletons Benedick and Beatrice. The plot then involves, essentially, the players pairing up – or being paired up. It’s a typical Shakespeare romantic comedy.

One of the reasons to recommend the Sheffield version is the fact that it is a Ramps on the Moon production.

A consortium made up of Leeds Playhouse, Birmingham Rep, Nottingham Playhouse, New Wolsey Theatre Ipswich, Theatre Royal Stratford East, Salisbury Playhouse and Sheffield Theatres, Ramps on the Moon is an important initiative and one that grows in stature and import every year.

It began when leading theatre company Graeae, which puts disabled performers front and centre, co-produced a version of The Threepenny Opera featuring a cast of deaf and disabled and non-disabled performers. The theatres involved, listed above, realised that something was unlocked in the play when presented with this integrated cast.

In 2016 the Ramps on the Moon consortium staged its first production proper with The Government Inspector, a revelatory piece of work that showed not only was there no ‘compromise’ in having a cast featuring disabled and non-disabled performers, but that it provided benefits to all. Guy Rhys, playing Benedick in Sheffield, says: “Ramps on the Moon is a pioneering initiative and I have never had the pleasure to work with them before. They are a real agency of change and hopefully, for a brief time, I can be one of their ‘soldiers of change’.”

One of the other key aspects of Ramps on the Moon is that the theatres truly engage with this work. Before lockdown the production Oliver Twist was directed by Leeds Playhouse’s deputy artistic director Amy Leach; the production was, rightly, critically acclaimed.

In Sheffield artistic director Robert Hastie is in the director’s chair. Rhys was last on stage in Sheffield in the hugely adventurous Rock/Paper/Scissors, which saw one cast run three plays concurrently.

“I wanted to work with Robert again and the top staff and crew at the Crucible again,” he says.

“Benedick is one of the most loved and famous bachelors ever written. Do I relate to him – yes and no. It’s hard to answer whilst still working out his character in rehearsals. But should audiences come and see this production? It’s Robert Hastie, on the Crucible stage, with a Ramps Shakespeare show that’s never been staged like this before.”

Much Ado About Nothing opens in Sheffield September 9 to 24. Tickets 0114 2496000.

It then tours to Leeds Playhouse, September 27 to October 1. Tickets 0113 2137700.