LOVES LABOURS LOSTA most excellent reason exists for Kenneth Branagh making the decision to turn William Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost into a musical comedy when he adapted it for the screen. (Although critics and the dozen or so people who actually paid to get into a theater to watch it may disagree.) Even without Branagh's transformation of the play into a 1930s Hollywood-style musical, Love's Labour's Lost could quite accurately be termed the Bard's attempt at writing a Broadway-style musical comedy since a faithful presentation of the intact play with no cuts produces more singing than any other of his plays.That being said, it is worth pointing out that Branagh's filmed version of Love's Labour's Lost released in 2000 was the first feature film version of the play and not only was the setting updated by several centuries, but roughly two-thirds of the text was cut and additional characters not found in the original. While the film was a flop, that failure is not likely placed on those changes since perhaps more than any Shakespeare play, Love's Labour's Lost seems to be directed toward the specific aesthetic characteristics of Elizabethan courtiers. Very few people then, now or ever have any real ability to relate to the aesthetic demands of those attending Renaissance court. As a result, this very early effort by Shakespeare--perhaps his first attempt at a comedy--has never been particularly popular once production of Shakespeare's plays moved outside the environs of the aristocracy and into the theater of the people from the Globe to the Cineplex.