Shakespeare Ladies Club gained influence over Drury Lane their popularity and success began to be recognized in prologues to performances of new plays and new adaptations of Shakespeare's plays. For the premiere of "The Universal Passion", an adaptation of "Much Ado About Nothing" by James Miller, the prologue included an “ecstatic eulogy of the Shakespeare Ladies Club”: Has slumb’ring lain near half a Cent’ry past, But now what Joy! to find the Night is o’er! To see the Lamp of Science shine once more; To see the Reign of Farce and Dulness end, And Albion’s noble Fair to Shakespear’s Sense attend. Fond to
Much Ado About Nothing the album is also a quotation from the play. The 2014 YouTube web series Nothing Much to Do is a modern retelling of the play, set in New Zealand. In 2015, Billie Joe Armstrong wrote the music for a rock opera adaptation of the play, "These Paper Bullets", which was written by Rolin Jones. In 2017, a YA adaptation was released by author Mckelle George called "Speak Easy, Speak Love", where the events of the play take place in the 1920s, focused around a failing speakeasy. In 2018, author Molly Booth released a summer YA novel adaptation called "Nothing Happened",