1. Much Ado About Nothing: A Dark Comedy What makes this a DARK comedy?

2. REASONS Shakespeare’s Comedies are about LOVE, more specifically that love creates discords in society. Much Ado conforms to this – look at Beatrice and Benedick-what makes it different to some other comedies however is just how deep some of these discords run. In this play Shakespeare leans towards not just amiable irrational characters, but the dark malevolent ones too who are opposed to the happiness of comedy and the spirit of love

3. We laugh at Beatrice and Benedick but the major emphasis is not on love in tension with social restraint , but on love being threatened by something malevolent: the anti-comic force that is Don John. Therefore the play presents both the attractive instincts and mean and cruel instincts in people.

4. So why does this darker side not dominate the atmosphere of the play?