18th-21st April

The Crescent Theatre

"However many times I see this ever changing young company, I am unfailingly amazed at the wealth of talent that director Liz Light contrives to fashion. This time it's a slice of Shakespeare, served up by a cast of 70 to yield a boisterous result that defies you not to be enraptured. It's very funny too - thanks in no small measure to Rowan Turner-Powell, a miniature Dogberry who is word perfect, joyous in his gestures and clear in his delivery. Here is a youngster destined to go far. Mastery of the script as is expected of Stage2, is universal. There are a host of powerful performances - Carly-Jayne Hutchinson a fiery Beatrice, Billy Coughlin (Benedick), Matthew Urwin (Claudio), Ellie Jurczak (Hero) and Lucy Bailey as Leonata - are all remarkable. This is a clean-cut production that brims with life, that often overruns the auditorium and that even uses outsized puppets in its wonderful trial scene. It's a joy of ingenuity. A Great Ado." Evening Mail