Music
The operas Montano et Stéphanie (1799) by Jean-Élie Bédéno Dejaure and Henri-Montan Berton, Béatrice et Bénédict (1862) by Hector Berlioz, Beaucoup de bruit pour rien (pub. 1898) by Paul Puget, Viel Lärm um Nichts (1896) by Árpád Doppler, and Much Ado About Nothing by Sir Charles Villiers Stanford (1901) are based upon the play.[40]
The composer Edward MacDowell said he was inspired by Ellen Terry's portrayal of Beatrice in this play for the scherzo of his Piano Concerto No. 2.[41]
Erich Wolfgang Korngold composed music for a 1917 production at the Vienna Burgtheater by Max Reinhardt.
In 2006 the American Music Theatre Project produced The Boys Are Coming Home,[42] a musical adaptation by Berni Stapleton and Leslie Arden that sets Much Ado About Nothing in America during the Second World War.
The title track of the 2009 Mumford & Sons album Sigh No More uses quotes from this play in the song. The title of the album is also a quotation from the play.
In 2015, Billie Joe Armstrong wrote the music for a rock opera adaptation of the play, These Paper Bullets, which was written by Rolin Jones.[43]
Opera McGill commissioned an operatic adaptation of the play with music by James Garner and libretto adapted by Patrick Hansen, to premiere in Montréal in the 2023/24 season.[44][45]
Film
The first cinematic version in English may have been the 1913 silent film directed by Phillips Smalley.
Martin Hellberg's 1964 East German film Viel Lärm um nichts was based on the play. In 1973 a Soviet film adaptation was directed by Samson Samsonov, starring Galina Jovovich and Konstantin Raikin.
The first sound version in English released to cinemas was the highly acclaimed 1993 film by Kenneth Branagh.[46] It starred Branagh as Benedick, Branagh's then-wife Emma Thompson as Beatrice, Denzel Washington as Don Pedro, Keanu Reeves as Don John, Richard Briers as Leonato, Michael Keaton as Dogberry, Robert Sean Leonard as Claudio, Imelda Staunton as Margaret, and Kate Beckinsale in her film debut as Hero.
The 2001 Hindi film Dil Chahta Hai is a loose adaptation of the play.[47]
In 2011, Joss Whedon completed filming an adaptation,[48] released in June 2013. The cast includes Amy Acker as Beatrice, Alexis Denisof as Benedick, Nathan Fillion as Dogberry, Clark Gregg as Leonato, Reed Diamond as Don Pedro, Fran Kranz as Claudio, Jillian Morgese as Hero, Sean Maher as Don John, Spencer Treat Clark as Borachio, Riki Lindhome as Conrade, Ashley Johnson as Margaret, Tom Lenk as Verges, and Romy Rosemont as the sexton. Whedon's adaptation is a contemporary revision with an Italian-mafia theme.
In 2012 a filmed version of the live 2011 performance at The Globe was released to cinemas and on DVD. The same year, a filmed version of the 2011 performance at Wyndham's Theatre was made available for download or streaming on the Digital Theatre website.
In 2015, Owen Drake created a modern movie version of the play, Messina High, starring Faye Reagan.[49]
The 2023 romantic comedy Anyone But You directed by Will Gluck and co-written by Ilana Wolpert,[50][51] and starring Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell as analogues of Beatrice and Benedick, is a loose adaptation principally set in contemporary Australia.
Television and web series
There have been several screen adaptations of Much Ado About Nothing, almost all of them made for television. An adaptation is the 1973 New York Shakespeare Festival production by Joseph Papp, shot on videotape and released on VHS and DVD, that includes more of the text than Branagh's version. It is directed by A. J. Antoon. The Papp production stars Sam Waterston, Kathleen Widdoes, and Barnard Hughes.
The 1984 BBC Television version stars Lee Montague as Leonato, Cherie Lunghi as Beatrice, Katharine Levy as Hero, Jon Finch as Don Pedro, Robert Lindsay as Benedick, Robert Reynolds as Claudio, Gordon Whiting as Antonio and Vernon Dobtcheff as Don John. An earlier BBC television version with Maggie Smith and Robert Stephens, adapted from Franco Zeffirelli's stage production for the National Theatre Company's London stage production, was broadcast in February 1967.[52]
In 2005, the BBC adapted the story by setting it in the modern-day studios of Wessex Tonight, a fictional regional news programme, as part of the ShakespeaRe-Told season, with Damian Lewis, Sarah Parish, and Billie Piper.[53]
The 2014 YouTube web series Nothing Much to Do is a modern retelling of the play, set in New Zealand.[54]
In 2019, PBS recorded a live production of the Public Theater's 2019 Shakespeare in the Park production at the Delacorte Theater in New York City’s Central Park for Great Performances. The all-Black cast features Danielle Brooks and Grantham Coleman as Beatrice and Benedick, directed by Kenny Leon, with choreography by Camille A. Brown.[55] The cast also includes Jamar Brathwaite (Ensemble), Chuck Cooper (Leonato), Javen K. Crosby (Ensemble), Denzel DeAngelo Fields (Ensemble), Jeremie Harris (Claudio), Tayler Harris (Ensemble), Erik Laray Harvey (Antonio/Verges), Kai Heath (Messenger), Daniel Croix Henderson (Balthasar), Tyrone Mitchell Henderson (Friar Francis/Sexton), Tiffany Denise Hobbs (Ursula), Lateefah Holder (Dogberry), LaWanda Hopkins (Dancer), Billy Eugene Jones (Don Pedro), Margaret Odette (Hero), Hubert Point-Du Jour (Don John), William Roberson (Ensemble), Jaime Lincoln Smith (Borachio), Jazmine Stewart (Ensemble), Khiry Walker (Conrade/Ensemble), Olivia Washington (Margaret) and Latra A. Wilson (Dancer).
Literature
In 2016, Lily Anderson released the young adult novel The Only Thing Worse Than Me Is You, a modern adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing whose main characters, Trixie Watson and Ben West, attend a "school for geniuses".[56]
In 2017, Mckelle George released a YA adaptation, Speak Easy, Speak Love, in which the play's events take place in the 1920s, focused around a failing speakeasy.[57]
In 2018, Molly Booth released a summer YA novel adaptation, Nothing Happened, in which Claudio and Hero are a queer couple, Claudia and Hana.[58]
In 2019, Laura Wood released Under a Dancing Star, a YA modernized version set in Florence.[59]
In 2022, Chloe Liese released Two Wrongs Make a Right, a contemporary romance reimagining of the tale.[60]
