The Handlebards – Much Ado About Nothing

30th July 2025

2nd July 2025 – A perfect Summer’s evening spent on the front lawn at Asthall Manor with picnics and performances!

Pedalling from venue to venue with all of their set, props and costumes on the back of their bikes, the HandleBards are a four-strong troupe of actors who are spent the summer of 2025 bringing environmentally sustainable Shakespeare to venues across the UK. The troupe arrived at Asthall Manor for a bicycle-powered production of Shakespeare’s ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ like you’d never seen before. In usual HandleBards style, there was riotous amounts of energy, a fair old whack of chaos, and a great deal of laughter. And what’s the play about? Well-a group of soldiers return from the war to a household in Messina, kindling new love interests and re-kindling old rivalries. The parallel love stories of Beatrice, Benedick, Claudio and Hero quickly become entangled with scheming, frivolity and melodrama in Shakespeare’s famous comedy.