Beatrice and Benedick

Hidden in the language of Shakespeare's best-loved comedy Much Ado About Nothing, are several clues to an intriguing tale. It seems that the witty lovers Beatrice and Benedick, had a previous youhful love affair which ended bitterly. But how did they meet, why did the part, and wha bought them together again? Messina, Sicily, 1588. Beatrice of Mantua, newly orphaned at just twenty, is bought to live at the court of he kindly uncle Leonato, to be companion and goveness to his ten-year-old daughter, Hero. That fateful summer, Spanish lordling Don Pedro visits for a month long sojourn with his regiment. In his company is the young soldier Benedick of Padua. Benedick and Beatrice begin to wage their merry war of wit, which masks the reality that they dance a more serious measure, and the two are soon deeply in love. But the pair are cruelly parted by natural disaster and man-made misunderstanding. Oceans apart, divided by war and slander, Beatrice and Benedick begin their ten-year odyessy back to Messina and each other.