The second, between Claudio's friend Benedick and Hero's cousin Beatrice, takes centre stage as the play continues, with both characters' wit and banter providing much of the humour.

"[4] On the soldiers' arrival, Don Pedro tells Leonato that they will stay a month at least, and Benedick and Beatrice resume their "merry war".

[5] Don Pedro and his men, bored at the prospect of waiting a week for the wedding, concoct a plan to match-make between Benedick and Beatrice.

On the night of Don John's treachery, the local Watch overheard Borachio and Conrade discussing their "treason"[5] and "most dangerous piece of lechery that ever was known in the commonwealth",[5] and arrested them therefore.

Shakespeare's immediate source may have been one of Matteo Bandello of Mantua's Novelle ("Tales"), possibly the translation into French by François de Belleforest,[6] which dealt with the tribulations of Sir Timbreo and his betrothed Fenicia Lionata, in Messina, after Peter III of Aragon's defeat of Charles of Anjou.

[1] The earliest recorded performances are two at Court in the winter of 1612–13, during festivities preceding the Wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Frederick V of the Palatinate (14 February 1613).

[21] In the play's patriarchal society, the men's loyalties are governed by conventional codes of honour, camaraderie, and a sense of superiority over women.

[21] Assumptions that women are by nature prone to inconstancy are shown in the repeated jokes about cuckoldry, and partly explain Claudio's readiness to believe the slander against Hero.

[citation needed] This stereotype is turned on its head in Balthasar's song "Sigh No More", which presents men as the deceitful and inconstant sex that women must abide.

[citation needed] Several characters seem obsessed with the idea that a man cannot know whether his wife is faithful and that women can take full advantage of this.

In Kenneth Branagh's 1993 film, Balthasar sings it beautifully: it is given a prominent role in the opening and finale, and the women seem to embrace its message.

These modes of deceit play into a complementary theme of emotional manipulation, the ease with which the characters' sentiments are redirected and their propensities exploited as a means to an end.

[24] Taken literally, the title implies that a great fuss ('much ado') is made of something insignificant ('nothing'), such as the unfounded claims of Hero's infidelity and that Benedick and Beatrice are in love with each other.

Benedick: Ho, now you strike like the blind man – 'twas the boy that stole your meat, and you'll beat the post.in which Benedick plays on the word post as a pole and as mail delivery in a joke reminiscent of Shakespeare's earlier advice 'Don't shoot the messenger'; and (2.3.138–142) Claudio: Now you talk of a sheet of paper, I remember a pretty jest your daughter told us of.

[28] In 1836, Helena Faucit played Beatrice at the very beginning of her career at Covent Garden, opposite Charles Kemble as Benedick in his farewell performances.

[citation needed] John Gielgud made Benedick one of his signature roles between 1931 and 1959, playing opposite Diana Wynyard, Peggy Ashcroft, and Margaret Leighton.

[citation needed] In 2013, Vanessa Redgrave and James Earl Jones (then in their seventies and eighties, respectively) played Beatrice and Benedick onstage at The Old Vic, London.

[27] 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.

[5] A 2015 rock opera adaptation of the play, These Paper Bullets, was written by Rolin Jones with music by Billie Joe Armstrong.

[citation needed] Martin Hellberg's 1964 East German film Viel Lärm um nichts was based on the play.

[citation needed] In 1973 a Soviet film adaptation was directed by Samson Samsonov, starring Galina Jovovich and Konstantin Raikin.

[47] 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 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.

[citation needed] In 2015, Owen Drake created a modern movie version of the play, Messina High, starring Faye Reagan.

[50] The 2023 romantic comedy Anyone but You, directed by Will Gluck and co-written by Ilana Wolpert,[51][52] is a loose adaptation principally set in contemporary Australia.

The 1973 New York Shakespeare Festival production by Joseph Papp, shot on videotape and released on VHS and DVD, includes more of the text than Branagh's version.

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.

Lily Anderson's 2016 novel The Only Thing Worse Than Me Is You is about Trixie Watson and Ben West, who attend a "school for geniuses".

[60] In his text on Jonathan Swift from 1940, Johannes V. Jensen cited Don John's line I am trusted with a muzzle and enfranchised with a clog; therefore I have decreed not to sing in my cage.