The Comedy of Errors – Shakespeare’s Globe, London

Writer: William Shakespeare

Directors: Naeem Hayat and Sean Holmes

Farce is not particularly associated with Shakespeare, but The Comedy of Errors sits defiant and proud within that subgenre of plays.

The tale of two sets of identical twins separated early in life – one pair of brothers called Antipholus, who each has a manservant called Dromio – is a preposterous setup and one that’s not helped by a belaboured prologue in which the Antipholuses’ father Egeon (Paul Rider) does his best to lay out the story as best he can. It’s a necessary component but also the least funny, which probably explains why it is immediately followed up with a prolonged slapstick fight sequence that more successfully sets out director Sean Holmes’s vision for the evening ahead.

In this production (returning from its 2023 debut), designer Paul Wills dresses the Globe to convey the sense of Ephesus as a medieval port city, with signs for inns and apothecaries hanging from the gallery and jetties thrusting into the groundlings’ space. Thus, the stage is set for a story where the repeated gag of one Antipholus or Dromio being taken for the other builds layer upon layer of comedic mishap.

The casting of the twins is crucial to any production of this play, and here, the Globe excels. Daniel Adeosun’s Antipholus of Syracuse is a suitably charming, if confused, visiting nobleman, both similar to and very different from his Ephesian sibling (Caleb Roberts). As the Dromios, Martin Quinn and Sam Swann are so physically similar that their differing accents come in handy for keeping track of who is who and who they are believed to be by others.

Co-directors Sean Holmes and Naeem Hayat always keep the pace up, ensuring that some of the play’s drier moments continually play into the comedy. That’s helped by a fruity arch performance from Gabrielle Brooks as Antipholus of Ephesus’s wife, Adriana, and Christopher Logan as goldsmith Angelo.

One trap that unsuccessful productions of The Comedy of Errors fall into is to go overboard on the comedy and slapstick to make the entire enterprise a non-stop gag fest. That pitfall is joyously avoided here, ensuring that all the humour has a firm foundation. Perhaps the relentless pace skips over some of Shakespeare’s fun dialogue, but the briskness of a performance that comes in at under two hours without an interval ensures that the Globe’s returning production is an immensely comical success.

Continues until 27 October 2024