I have more than a few times enjoyed one of the lighter Shakespeare plays, but never as much as Love’s Labour’s Won at Stratford last night. This was a complete evening of theatrical entertainment that sent its audience out into the cold night air with a warm glow and privileged to have been present .

The play was a retitling of Much Ado about Nothing, for no other reason that it was sharing a season with Love’s Labour’s Lost and, perhaps, because there is believed to have once been a manuscript for a Shakespearian play of that new title. The setting was a country manor, modelled very effectively on Charlecote, just after the First World War, this being part of the RSC’s WW1 centenary season.

The acting was straight from the top drawer, too good across the whole cast to single anyone, except for perhaps the man who almost brought the house down, Nick Haverson , playing out a demented bravura performance as Dogberry, not seen until the second half, but never to be forgotten. He was the core of a side splittingly funny scene as with hilarious incompetence, he brought Borachio and Conrade to book before the Sexton.

The superlative cast delivered the full gamut of emotions across the night, as scenes of merriment were interspersed with moments of high tension and extreme poignancy sufficient to still the audience to the point that one doubted they breathed.

An overlay of the music composed/adapted by Nigel Hess brought the play to a new level and rounded the enjoyment. The players complemented their thespian accomplishments with such delightful part singing they could have been thought a choir.

A fresh setting of In The Bleak Midwinter fitted beautifully into the tale as the plot against Hero darkened the mood and a catchy, jaunty adaptation of Marlowe’s “Come Live with Me and Be My Love”, set into a deliciously choreographed finale and bows sent us home replete.