The critically acclaimed Watermill Ensemble sashay into the Golden
Age of Hollywood with a glamourous new take on Shakespeare’s classic comedy.
Set against the backdrop of a bustling film set, passions run high as the drama continues even when the cameras stop rolling. Bickering on-screen lovers Benedick and Beatrice bring mischief and mayhem to the set, while the young lovers, rising star Claudio and, the daughter of the studio boss, Hero are threatened by an elaborate plot of deception.
Lose yourself in the music and film of this golden era with a 1940s-inspired soundscape, played live by an ensemble cast of actor-musicians.
Performance schedule
Mon – Sat 7.30pm (16 April 7pm)
Thu & Sat 2.30pm (excl. 13 April & 9 May)
Wed 2.30pm (8 May)
Performance information
Running time: 2 hours 45 minutes including an interval.
This production contains Haze, smoke, flashing images and loud sound effects.
Tickets from £22.50
Concessions available.
Book early for the best prices across our performances, ticket prices vary according to demand.
Food and Drink
We have a range of food and drink options available, from light bites to a full pre-show meal. You can view our main menu here.
Complimentary drink offer
Book our 2-course menu between before performances between 6 – 18 May and enjoy a complimentary drink to accompany your meal.
You can browse our menu and book your table here
Drinks include:
A 175g glass of house wine (175g),
Pint of Hurricane bitter
Watermill Craft Lager
J20
Audio Flyer
BSL Flyer
Written by William Shakespeare
Adapted by Tom Wentworth
Director Paul Hart
Designer Ceci Calf
Sound Designer and Musical Director Robin Colyer
Lighting Designer Charly Dunford
Movement Director Emily Holt
Assistant Director Sofia Gallucci
Katherine Jack
Beatrice
Theatre includes: As You Like It (The Watermill Theatre), An Inspector Calls (PW Productions), Agamemnon (Cambridge Arts Theatre), Love's Labours Lost ( The Willow Globe), Hamlet (Shakespeare Association)
Television includes: The Capture (BBC1), Holby City (BBC), Hollyoaks (Lime Pictures), Cobra (Sky)
James Mack
Benedick
James trained at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama, graduating in 2013.
Theatre credits include: Spike (UK Tour and Watermill Theatre); The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Rivals, Macbeth, Journey’s End (Watermill Theatre); Burke & Hare (New Wolsey Theatre); Cinderella, One Man, Two Guvnors (Torch Theatre); Robin Hood (The Old Market Theatre, Brighton); Ragtime (Charing Cross Theatre); The Provok'd Wife (Go People and Tour); Dr. Faustus (Matchstick Theatre Company); Mermaid (London Shuffle Festival); This Heaven (Finborough Theatre); Hay Fever (Duke of Yorks, West End); A Christmas Carol (Old Red Lion); Julius Caesar (Sam Wanamaker Festival, Shakespeare’s Globe); Confusions, The Insect Play (Theatre Royal Haymarket).
Film and television credits include: Bad Snappers (Comedy Central).
Thuliswa Magwaza
Hero
Thuliswa Magwaza is a Zimbabwean British Actor and Singer. She has completed training with the National Youth Theatre’s REP Company and participated in the 2023 season including the offie nominated revival of 'Gone Too Far' at Stratford East and has since played 'Lady Macbeth' in Macbeth at The Watermill which has recently won Best Theatre of the Year at The Stage Awards 2024. Before this, she completed a 1st Class degree in English Literature, specialising in Classical Theatre at the University of Adelaide in South Australia and University of Southampton. Short film credits include ‘Illustrating Sam Newton’, directed by Lily Drummond in South Australia, selected for the Oscar qualifying Slamdance Festival in 2022. As a singer, she has provided back up vocalist for Sophie- Ellie Bextor’s Greatest Hits Album ‘The Song Diaries’ including ‘Murder on The Dance-floor’ Theatre credits include: ‘Hero’ in Much Ado About Nothing at The Duke of York’s Theatre, ‘The Girl’ Imaginary Natural Beings, Camden Fringe 2023, and Ensemble in The White Card written by acclaimed poet and playwright Claudia Rankine at Soho Theatre.
pasting
Fred Double
Claudio
Training: Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts (2023)
Theatre Credits: Lord of the Flies (New Adventures, UK Tour) Wuthering Heights (Wise Children, DeLaMar Theatre) Aladdin (Hackney Empire) A Swingin’ Christmas (Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club)
Credits whilst training: The Tempest, Alice in Wonderland, Once (Mountview)
Patrick Bridgman
Leonato
Patrick has previously appeared at the Watermill in Some Like It Hotter (2011) and in The Lord of the Rings, as Gandalf.
Other recent theatre includes: The Christmas Lobster, Farnham Maltings; The Many Deaths of Michael Malloy, Royal William Yard Plymouth; Five Children and It, the egg, Bath; A Very Odd Birthday Party, Hawkseed Theatre Company; Jack and the Beanstalk, Oldham Coliseum; Oliver Twist, Hull Truck.
TV includes: The Crown, Eastenders, Coronation Street, Emmerdale, Brassic
Hayden Wood
Dogberry
Hayden is delighted to be back at The Watermill having last year appeared in the world premiere stage adaptation of Bill Bryson’s Notes From A Small Island. He spent a year in The West End playing Chris Bean in The Play That Goes Wrong and was in the original casts of both the Olivier-nominated Alice's Adventures Underground (The Vaults), and Doctor Who: Time Fracture (West End).
His other theatre work includes Aladdin and Chris Mystery & The Mystery of the Missing Christmas Tree (Cheltenham Playhouse), Richard II (Arcola, Houses of Parliament), Snail (The Vaults), Roald Dahl and the Imagination Seekers (UK Tour), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (Park Theatre), Ghost City (King's Head), The Bunker Trilogy (Southwark Playhouse, Edinburgh Fringe, Adelaide Fringe- Winner Best Theatre Award 2014), Confetti & Chaos (Edinburgh Fringe), Sherlock Holmes: A Working Hypothesis (UK Tour), Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty (Hawthorne Theatre), The Owls Are Not What They Seem (Theatre Delicatessen), LINE (Stephen Joseph), The Girl With The Imagination (Greenwich Theatre), The Boy James, Lorca Is Dead, Outland and The Tartuffe (all with Edinburgh International Festival Award winners, Belt Up Theatre.) He also tours the world as Basil in Faulty Towers The Dining Experience.
His TV work includes Horrible Histories.
Hayden directed Lucy Farrett’s acclaimed solo shows LadyFace and Lois. He was Resident Director for The Cheltenham Playhouse’s recent production of Aladdin, in which he also appeared as the villain.
He is a multi-instrumentalist and has worked as a composer, most notably co-writing the music for Belt Up Theatre’s The Beggar’s Opera, which premiered at York Theatre Royal in 2011
This is Hayden’s fourth time at The Watermill, having originated the roles of Father Canty in The Prince & The Pauper, William Burke in Burke & Hare and Movie Announcer in Notes From A Small Island (in which he also played nineteen other characters!) Hayden reprised the role of Burke in Burke & Hare for its runs at both The New Wolsey and Jermyn Street.
Emma Barclay
Verges / Friar / Conrade
Emma trained at Drama Centre London and Cambridge University. Theatre credits include:
Understudy Fergie and Camilla in The Windsors Endgame (West End); Pierluigi Ambrosi and Baldozi in Rapunzel (The Watermill Theatre).One Million Tiny Plays About Britain (Jermyn Street Theatre and Watermill Theatre); Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Wilton’s Music Hall and UK tour); As You Like It (Watermill Theatre); Honk! (UK Tour); Babe the Sheep Pig (Polka Theatre and UK tour); Doctor Faustus, Comedy of Errors (Cambridge Arts Theatre)
Leigh Quinn
Verges / Friar / Conrade
Training: Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, Groundlings Theatre School
Theatre work includes: Linck and Mülhahn ( Hampstead Theatre); Boundless as the Sea and Miss Littlewood (Both RSC/QM2); Womens Writes (Arcola Theatre); Scrounger (Finborough); A Little Night Music and The Crucible (both Storyhouse Theatre, Chester); Pride and Prejudice (Regent's Park Open Air Theatre); Henry IV; Henry V and Richard II (all RSC, Barbican/China/Bam Theatre, NY); The Famous Victories of Henry V; Troilus and Cressida; Two Gentlemen of Verona and Henry IV Parts 1 & 2 (all RSC); The Low Road (Royal Court); The Marvellous Imaginary Menagerie (Les Enfants Terribles Theatre Company, Latitude)
Film work includes: Love at First Sight ,The Best of Men and Eight Minutes Idle.
Short film work includes: Write Off; The Yellow Wallpaper; Puck’s Window; Three Lives; and Mad Bear
Television work includes: Shakespeare Live!; People of Paisley; Year of the Rabbit; Case Histories; and Hedz
Voiceover work includes : The Tate Movie Project (Aardman)
Radio work includes: All the Milkman’s Children
Priscille Grace
Margaret
Priscille Grace is a French actress and singer based in UK. She graduated from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and ArtsEd Foundation Course after having studied classical music with the Maîtrise de Paris Choir at the National Conservatoire of Paris, where she grew up.
Credits include: Reputation- The Other Palace (2019), Little Match Girl - ORNC Greenwich (2022), Dido’s Bar - Royal Docks (2022), Cinderella- Oxford Playhouse ( 2022-2023), Twelfth Night - Shakespeare in the Square (2023), Dick Whittington - Queens Theatre Hornchurch (2023)
Augustina Seymour
Don John
Theatre includes: Othello (The Watermill); Pictures of Dorian Gray (Jermyn Street/ Stephen Joseph Theatre/ Creation); Twelfth Night (Chichester Festival Theatre/ Flute); A Midsummer Night's Dream (Orange Tree Theatre/ Flute); Machinal (Almeida); The Crucible (Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch/ Selladoor); Look Back in Anger (Derby Theatre/ Bolton Octagon); Playing for Time(Sheffield Crucible); Finding Mr Hart (Being Human Festival); It’s a Wonderful Life (Seabright Productions); Strangers on a Train(English Theatre Frankfurt); The Nutcracker (Nuffield); Hitchcock Blonde (Hull Truck); A Doll's House, Colder Than Here, Roma and the Flanelettes (Theatre by the Lake); Richard III, Hamlet (Guildford Shakespeare Company); Shore/ Littoral (Riverside Studios); Crown Matrimonial (Act Productions); Saraband (Jermyn Street); Romeo & Juliet, A Christmas Carol, King Lear (ADGE/TNT).
Television includes: Secret Invasion (Disney+); Casualty (BBC); Emmerdale (ITV)
Augustina trained at Guildhall.
Jack Quarton
Don Pedro
Jack trained at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA).
Theatre: Amélie (Criterion Theatre); The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Southwark Playhouse, Elephant); The Wicker Husband (Watermill Theatre); Assassins (Nottingham Playhouse/Watermill Theatre); Wonderland (Nottingham Playhouse/Northern Stage); Coram Boy (Nottingham Playhouse); Song of the Sytch (Claybody Theatre); An August Bank Holiday Lark (Northern Broadsides); Much Ado About Nothing, The Tempest, Swallows and Amazons (Storyhouse/ Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre); Great Expectations, Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, Hansel and Gretel (Derby Theatre); On the Mend (Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham); Ovid’s Metamorphoses (Pants On Fire Theatre Company); Alice in Wonderland (Octagon Theatre, Bolton); The Master and Margarita (Lodestar Theatre Company).
Film: Mike Leigh’s Peterloo.
Jack also works as a composer, lyricist and musical director. His work includes A Christmas Carol, Cinderella (Derby Theatre, MD), Goldilocks and the Three Bears (Nottingham Playhouse, composer and MD), Everything is Possible (York Theatre Royal, choral arranger).