Doctor Who’s Martha Jones, Freema Agyeman takes centre stage at the Royal Shakespeare Company for Much Ado About Nothing this summer
The Royal Shakespeare Company have announced Freema Agyeman as the star of their 2025 production of Much Ado About Nothing. The actor, who played the Doctor’s companion Martha Jones, takes the iconic lead role of Beatrice. Here Shakespeare’s classic heroine is reimagined as a cynical sports reporter in a version transported to the modern world of football and celebrity culture. She and football star Benedick (Nick Blood) despise each other and scorn the whole concept of love. However, in this prototype for centuries of romcoms, sparks of witty putdowns inevitably evolve into sparks of something else entirely.
The pair’s conviction that love is for fools is further put to the test when malicious gossip threatens to break up their friends Claudio and Hero on their wedding day. Can the two cynics expose the truth and save the day for love?
The announcement comes as Freema Agyeman wins Best Supporting Performer at the What’s On Stage Awards, for her role as Nurse in Romeo and Juliet.
Tickets for Much Ado About Nothing go on general sale the 12th of February, perfect timing for a Valentine’s present. The production runs from the 12th of April to the 24th of May at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon. Performances on the 7th and 8th of May will be filmed to be screened at a later date. You can book your tickets at the RSC site here.
Much Ado About Nothing
‘Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps’
It’s all kicking off in Messina.
The winners are back from the action and a celebrity wedding is on the cards. But not everyone wants the big day to go off without a hitch. Meanwhile, will an assist from the team mates mean old rivals Beatrice and Benedick finally manage to score themselves?
Michael Longhurst, fresh from his tenure as Artistic Director of the Donmar Warehouse (Next To Normal, The Band’s Visit, Constellations) directs Freema Agyeman (RSC Twelfth Night, Doctor Who) and Nick Blood (Day of the Jackal, Slow Horses, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D) as Beatrice and Benedick in Shakespeare’s original rom-com set in the world of top-flight football and celebrity culture, where scandal-filled rivalries are the hottest new thing and lads and WAGs collide.
