Much Ado About Nothing in a poem published in 1640, Leonard Digges wrote, "...let but Beatrice / And Benedick be seen, lo in a trice / The Cockpit galleries, boxes, all are full." After the theatres re-opened during the Restoration, Sir William Davenant staged "The Law Against Lovers" (1662), which inserted Beatrice and Benedick into an adaptation of "Measure for Measure". Another adaptation, "The Universal Passion", combined "Much Ado" with a play by Molière (1737). Shakespeare's text had been revived by John Rich at Lincoln's Inn Fields (1721). David Garrick first played Benedick in 1748 and continued to play him until 1776. The great
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",