On Stage

1598-1599: Lord Chamberlain’s Men.
 

1612-1613: King’s Men. Shakespeare’s company did the play twice at court for a royal wedding celebration.
 

1748-1776: David Garrick and Hannah Pritchard (1748-1756) star as Beatrice and Benedick. According to Miola, “Garrick and Pritchard played Ado as a light comedy that centered on a dazzling contest of wits.”
 

1803-1840: Charles Kemble stars as Benedick and makes that character “a gentleman of honor and feeling”.
 

1836-1879: Helena Faucit mastered a performance as Beatrice that was full of “wit, deep emotion, spirituality, and goodness.”
 

1843, 1851: William Macready produced Ado with “an arched and columned banqueting hall and an ornamental Italian garden.”
 

1845-1865: Charles and Ellen Keen star as Benedick and Beatrice in a production that cut about ¼ of the lines and focused more on the scenery.
 

1882-1895: Ellen Terry and Henry Irving star as Beatrice and Benedick, with Irving directing. Irving’s production was lavish and cut the low-brow comedy. In Miola’s words, “Ellen Terry presented the most widely acclaimed Beatrice ever, a merry charmer who radiated warmth but was capable of darker feelings and emotions.”
 

1904: William Poel directed Ado with Rita Jolivet and Victor Dougall in the leading roles. Instead of the Victorian-style productions that focused on on sentimentality and spectacle, his production focused on rapid speech, continuous action, and simple staging.
 

1949-1959: John Gielgud and Peggy Ashcroft (1950, 1955) star. This production explored the full comedic range of the text by embracing the wit and malapropisms alike.
 

1965-1967: Franco Zeffirelli directed the show with Maggie Smith (1965-1966). Zeffirelli set the production in Sicily during a raucous party. In what was considered a controversial production, Zeffirelli “used Mediterranean codes of honor and vengeance to make sense of the play, freely modernizing the text and mixing in fantasy elements.”
 

1968-1969: Trevor Nunn directs Janet Suzman and Alan Howard in a production that focused on the darker elements and sexual tension of the play.
 

1976-1977: John Barton directed Judi Dench and Donald Sinden in a production set in British-controlled India. Barton explored the military bravado of the men in the play. Dench took Beatrice’s reference to “false dice” as evidence for Benedick’s past indiscretions against Beatrice.
 

1982-1985: Terry Hands directs Sinead Cusack and Derek Jacobi in a production that explored the romance as much as it did the fury beneath characters like Beatrice.
 

1993: Queens Theatre Production. Received excellent audience and critics’ praise. The Evening Standard noted: “The production is staged in a huge blue tent, on whose flaps are painted sea and clouds. The world inside the tent, with its grass and deckchairs, cocktails and sliding panels of black blinds for the villainous Don John scenes suggests the pleasure-prone Thirties.”
 

2006: Swan Theatre and West End Production. Modernised version of Shakespeare’s politically tinged comedy, setting the show in 1950’s Cuba.
 

2011: Wyndham's Theatre, London. David Tennant and Catherine Tate star in a production set in modern times. It’s as full of witty banter as it is rife with slapstick.

 

On Screen
 

1993: Kenneth Branagh directs and stars alongside Emma Thompson. The film cuts much of the text and is highly romanticized, even at the expense of dulling the sharp wit of the text. Thompson delivers a “wonderfully rich and nuanced Beatrice” despite the film’s tendency to oversimplify.
 

2012: Joss Whedon directs Amy Acker and Alexis Denisof in a black and white film set in the modern era and confined to a large suburban home.