Gina Dalfonzo, editor of BreakPoint.org and Dickensblog, explains how Joss Weldon’s Much Ado About Nothing undermines itself in the opening scenes by depicting Benedick and Beatrice having a one-night stand before the play begins. This is a play about a betrayal plot to ruin a man’s life by ruining his finance’s virtue. She is a maiden, that is, a virgin, and her friends vehemently defend her.

“Hero’s father hints at one point that an already-engaged couple yielding to temptation wouldn’t be such a grave offense. But a drunken one-night stand–that would have gone against everything that Beatrice had ever been taught.”

This may be a good example of many retellings of old stories, Shakespearean and non. The plot is established and relatively unchanged, but when modern writers attempt to add modern backstory to the characters, they do so within their own moral framework, not recognizing the contrast between their world and the original writer’s.