Set in the wealthy and urbane city of Messina.

The play opens with Leonato, the governor of Messina, on stage, and we soon learn that he lives in a courtly mansion with his beautiful young daughter Hero, and his niece, Hero's cousin, the somewhat older but still attractive Beatrice. Leonato is told of the approach of the Prince of Aragon, Don Pedro, who arrives accompanied by two of his loyal men, Benedick and Claudio. They have just subdued a rebellion against Don Pedro, Claudio and Benedick acquitting themselves well in battle. Somewhat surprisingly, within the Prince's retinue are several rebels led by Don John (Pedro's bastard brother and the play's chief villain) and his foremost henchman, Borachio. Don Pedro explains that his forces defeated Don John with little loss of life and that the two are now reconciled. Beatrice and Benedick immediately turn to an exchange of insults, sparring with each other verbally, each of them casting disparaging and witty remarks upon the other, upon the opposite sex, and upon marriage. Encountering the lovely Hero, Claudio falls in love with her. Witnessing this, his commander, the older and more high estee

Leonato rushing to the wedding of Hero and Claudio, encounters Dogberry and the Watch. But the ultimately exposure of Don John's trickery is delayed as Dogberry prattles on. Leonato merely direct Dogberry to interrogate the prisoners further and then write a report.

A new and highly comical element is added into the mix. A drunken Borachio describes Don John's plans to his confederate, Conrade, but they are both detained by the local police or Watch, who have been ordered to arrest any disorderly characters. They bring Borachio and Conrade to the their immediate superior the constable Dogberry. Dogberry is a comical figure, a clown who is inept, harbors an over-inflated estimation of his own importance, and, above all, is given to the use of long words that he confuses, mispronounces, or otherwise butchers. With the assistance of his second-in-command, the incompetent Verges, Dogberry plans to bring the two suspects before governor Leonato.

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