Much ado about nothing was most likely written around in 1598 but it's first performance wasn't until 1612. The play is about a band of soldiers returning from a war, victorious, and are welcomed into Leonato's home who is the governor of Messina and great friends with Don Pedro (Prince of Arragon). What follows is a set of capers, farce, romantic and evil plots. We encounter two sets of lovers within this play. Hero and Claudio our atypical Romeo and Juliet star crossed lovers and The reluctant and smart mouthed Benedick and Beatrice. After being rejected by Beatrice Don Pedro devises a plan to trick Benedick and Beatrice into falling in love with one another. While this goes Don John (Don Pedro's evil bastard brother) plots to trick Claudio into thinking Hero has been unfaithful the night before their wedding. This leads Claudio to shame her at the alter causing Hero to fake her own death to avoid public scandal and sort this mess out whilst causing massive guilt among her wrong doers. It all ends happily(ish) with Claudio and Hero plus Benedick and Beatrice all getting married. However there are some lose ends to tie up. How will Don Pedro punish his brother? Will he ever find a "wife"? Will Leonato ever invite the soldiers back again? Overall the play rings true to it's name as a lot of action takes place over seemingly nothing. This causes chaos and comedy and allows the audience to be thrown along with misadventure after misadventure.
Don Pedro in my opinion is the driver of the plot; events would not happen in the play without his intervening. He woos Hero for Claudio, He creates the plan for Benedick and Beatrice to fall in love, without his brother there would be no antagonist of the play. He is the matchmaker, peace keeper and puppet master of all and he does this with majesty and grace. However he also has a dark side as his loyal nature results in him helping to shame Hero at the wedding, he can be nasty when he wants to. For such a nice character he has a little bit of a sad ending. Much like Jaques in As you like it he doesn't join in with the end festivities as other thoughts preoccupied is mind. His loneliness? His brothers treachery? Overall Don Pedro has a very important part to play in the story and there's no way the play could exists without him.
A contemporary production of Much ado about nothing (2011) directed by Josie Rourke starring David Tennant and Catherine Tate as Benedick and Beatrice is brilliant to research an analyse as it has a simmilar concept to our own production. Set in 1980's in Gibraltar after the Falklands war. This brings the play into an accessible time period for many of the audiences creating a strong conceit for the action to take place in. The style also allowed the costumes to be vibrant and varied as you had a strong contrast between the white of the naval officers uniform and the outlandish costumes of the party scene. The production also featured a revolving stage. This meant that the fast paced action could be continuous and sharp as scenes could happen one after the other without set changes needing to happen. It also gave way to a lot of slapstick comedy with the hiding scenes standing out in particular as they became even more chaotic as the stage was literally turning around the actors. The casting choices were genius. Catherine Tate and David Tennant had such brilliant chemistry and their comic timing with each other was impeccable. They'd obviously already bonded over their run together in doctor who and this translated to the stage very well. Adam James played the part of Don Pedro extremely well as it is very easy for this character to be overshadowed by the hilarious Benedick however he delivered the part with such control and was essiential in setting up the comedy. For example during the proposal scene he didn't try to steal the lime light rather he let Beatrice play out the awkward atmosphere he helped to create. 
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