Come and have a go if you think you're BARD enough

Birmingham actor Nick Blood is bringing terrace chants to a new football-themed production of Much Ado About Nothing

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You're known for your screen roles in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Day of the Jackal. This is your Royal Shakespeare Company debut. How are you feeling about playing Benedict?

I'm really looking forward to it. It’s a real bucket list thing. I had taken my nephew, who is 13 and studying Shakespeare, to see the RSC’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and I thought to myself that I'd love to do something at the RSC, and then this job came up.

Is this your first professional Shakespeare production?

I've done a couple of Jacobeans but not Shakespeare before. It’s my first Shakespeare at the RSC - it’s all downhill from here! The last stage piece I did was After the End by Dennis Kelly, directly by Lyndsey Turner at Stratford East which was a proper career highlight. It was a play I fell in love with at drama school and I love Kelly’s writing.

You get caught up doing screen stuff and I’m always yearning to get back on stage. Getting to work with Mike [Longhurst], director of this version of Much Ado About Nothing, these amazing actors and seeing how they work and what they bring to their roles is brilliant.

How do these mediums differ for you in terms of preparation and performance?