Charles I famously wrote "Bennedike and Betrice" under the title of the play in his copy of the Second Folio; and it is the two warring characters, technically the subplot, that are always the big draw. Over the years I've seen countless memorable duos. Michael Redgrave and Googie Withers (1957), Robert Stephens and Maggie Smith (Old Vic, 1965), Derek Jacobi and Sinéad Cusack (1982). I also have fond memories of Simon Russell Beale and Zoë Wanamaker (at the National in 2007) as a Benedick and Beatrice likely to go on merrily arguing into eternity.
Passing over the recent debacle at the Old Vic with James Earl Jones and Vanessa Redgrave, we've lately had a multiplicity of Much Ados. Two even opened within the space of five days in the summer of 2011. At Shakespeare's Globe, Charles Edwards (excellent) and Eve Best were the sparring partners, while David Tennant and Catherine Tate locked horns in a noisy West End revival by Josie Rourke.
But I'd finally plump for two other versions. In 1993, Kenneth Branagh made a first-rate film that began, unforgettably, with the sight of the returning soldiery galloping apace over an Italian plain: Branagh and his then wife, Emma Thompson, invested the raillery with real wit. But, although I've been accused of favouring Stratford in the 1970s, I've never seen anything to match a John Barton production in 1976, set during the days of the British Raj, with Donald Sinden and Judi Dench. Sinden exploited his great gift for raking the auditorium with faintly disapproving eyes, while Dench movingly suggested Beatrice's sparkling facade concealed a bruised heart. They made a peerless pair.
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