OK, I was prepared. I'd read the reviews (a fatal thing to do, but I'm nosy) and expected the worst. Here is a sample of Old Vic reviews of Much Ado About Nothing, starring James Earl Jones and Vanessa Redgrave:

The Telegraph:

'I greatly admire both these actors, but having such elderly thesps playing these characters sometimes seems cruel and unusual punishment for both them and the audience.
Benedick is renowned for his wit, but Jones's delivery of the lines is so slow and hesitant, that whenever he embarks a speech one worries whether he will get safely to the end of it...

SHAKESPEARE