Much Ado About Nothing, Theatre Royal Drury Lane review - this shamelessly hedonistic production is a triumph

Over the last few months, celebrity-driven West End productions have suffered some inglorious crashes. So there was a certain degree of trepidation at the opening night for this star vehicle for Tom Hiddleston and Hayley Atwell. For five minutes, it must be confessed, this reviewer was worried; it seemed so over-miked, so hyper, so, well PINK.

But between the diamond-sharp banter and the endorphin fizz, something started to happen, and suddenly it erupted into one of the best parties in town.

Lloyd’s shamelessly hedonistic production seizes on the carnivalesque spirit of Shakespeare’s screwball classic and whisks it to Nineties clubland, complete with ecstasy-fuelled dancing, exuberant gender fluidity, and eye-goggling animal-head costumes. The dominant backdrop is a gigantic inflatable heart, while blizzards of pink ticker tape punctuate the action, heaping up on the stage like hallucinogenic snow. Images of the returning soldiers are swapped on mobile phones to be checked for heartthrob potential, while Mason Alexander Park’s non-binary Margaret delivers sonorous renditions of club classics including Taylor Dane’s Tell It To My Heart and Madonna’s Justify My Love. It would take a constitution of steel – not to say hotpants of lead – to stay immune to the technicolour joie de vivre.

During the course of her career, Atwell has proved she can cope with everything from corsets to dangling off a cliff on a train, so it’s no surprise to see her delivering Shakespeare’s quips like a knife thrower. As Beatrice, she superbly balances the blade-like wit with a heartfelt intelligence that makes the audience genuinely care when she lets down her guard enough to show that she has a connection with Benedick. Hiddleston’s enjoyable, self-mocking performance shows Benedick up as a self-regarding party boy with an easy-come easy-go attitude towards women. He flashes his pecs at Beatrice the first time he sees her after “discovering” her love for him, but when his loyalty is put to the test it rapidly becomes clear that there is subtlety beyond the six pack.

The enjoyably volcanic chemistry between the two actors comes in no small part from the way they negotiate the different rhythms of the production. Both clearly revel in the manic, sexualised dance routines – at one hilariously self-referential point each actor takes it in turns to dance suggestively round a cardboard cut-out of the other’s incarnation as a Marvel character. Both display a comedic physical versatility too. Hiddleston in particular brings the house down when he’s eavesdropping on the friends claiming that Beatrice loves him, alternately plunging like a pogo stick through a hidden trapdoor or exhaling so forcefully that pink ticker tape flies everywhere.Yet these two seasoned stage performers know how to stop the clock as well. When they pause and stare at each other, we sense the whole emotional hinterland of their relationship. In Atwell’s voice we hear the angry vulnerability that has led to her acquiring such a robust emotional armour. Both characters, we realise, are superb at levity because their emotions run so deep, and this chemistry comes particularly powerfully into play when they realise they have to defend the honour of Beatrice’s cousin, Hero.

As the younger pair of lovers, Claudio and Hero, James Phoon and Mara Huf tap strongly into the club vibe. For much of the production, their relationship seems almost cartoonish as they dart around the stage in shiny happy costumes revelling in a fetishised tongue-flicking sexuality. In contrast to Beatrice and Benedick’s psychological connection, theirs is an intense chemical love. It’s a tribute to both actors that the fallout feels so violent when Phoon’s Claudio wrongly suspects Hero of being unfaithful.

This production gives cause to reflect that Much Ado is particularly interesting because of the way that Shakespeare deploys elements that he uses in other plays with strikingly different outcomes. As with Macbeth, we first hear of Claudio and Benedick as brave soldiers returning triumphant from war, yet where for the former this stokes an ambition that leads to murder, here it leads to a thirst for escapism. In Romeo and Juliet, the plotline where the priest suggests that Juliet fakes her own death leads directly to the couple’s double suicide. But in Much Ado, Hero’s simulated demise leads to her triumphant vindication.So the message is joy no matter what happens. That’s certainly what we get from this vibrant tour de force. Fabian Aloise’s gravity-defying movement direction (in mood at least) is heightened by Soutra Gilmour’s dreamy summer-of-love design. Among the supporting cast Gerald Kyd's devil-may-care Don Pedro and Tim Steed's uninhibitedly hammy villain, Don Jon, boost the comic intrigue.

It's a glorious turnaround for Lloyd, whose The Tempest - which had much of the same cast - was drenched by the critics. There's nothing political about it – yet at the moment you clock this, you realise that it’s intensely political in its undiluted escapism. For two glorious hours there’s no need to think about Trump, Musk, Putin or any other aspect of the global polycrisis. Apart from the fact that with its strong women and gender fluidity this show represents everything the world's most oppressive politicians loathe. All the more reason, then, to lose yourself in the anarchic silliness and leave the theatre dancing.

• Much Ado About Nothing runs at Theatre Royal till April 5
• More theatre reviews on theartsdesk