The Comedy of Errors

Synopsis

Shakespeare’s furiously paced comedy will be staged in a contemporary world into which walk three prohibited foreigners who see everything for the first time.

Two sets of twins separated at birth collide in the same city without meeting for one crazy day, as multiple mistaken identities lead to confusion on a grand scale. And for no one more so than Antipholus of Syracuse and his servant Dromio who, in search of their brothers, arrive in a land entirely foreign to their distant home. A buzzing metropolis, to the outsiders it appears a place of wonderment and terror, where baffling gifts and unexplained hostilities abound.

Consistently recognised by strangers, the visitors question their very selves as the turmoil escalates. Meanwhile, Aegeon, father to the Antipholus twins, has been captured searching for his sons and, as an illegal immigrant, is sentenced to death at sunset.

Lenny Henry plays Antipholus of Syracuse. 
 

Our Review:

Michael Coveney - 30 November 2011

Dominic Cooke’s debut production at the National laboriously rescues Shakespeare’s fleet and funny farce from its “Boys from Syracuse” tradition of Mediterranean mayhem: we are in a rough inner city more like the port of Amsterdam than the coast of Ephesus.

There is nothing much wrong with this, but having cast Lenny Henry as the visiting Antipholus – and he’s more than equal to the challenge, — Cooke and designer Bunny Christie throw so much noise and design at the show that the comedy of mistaken identity bends and buckles into one of not “who’s who” but “who cares who’s who?”

As a sequel to Richard Bean’s Goldoni, a sort of “Two Men, Two Guvnors,” it limps home a lame second. The long expository speech of the arrested merchant, Egeon (Joseph Mydell), is made longer by ship wreck palaver, a ponderous mimed narrative of the birth of the two sets of twins, sudden ...

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Latest User Review

sarahlund - 4 March 2012:

This is an EXCELLENT production and the whole audience was in hysterics when i went to see it. I don't understand how anyone could describe this as not funny. I fear they may be a little stuffy in their attitude towards theatre. The modern context works really well and all the students I took to see it absolutely loved it. Ok, so maybe the very small minority of people who are Shakespeare experts and go to the theatre on a regular basis would find some of the special effects distracting, but for a lot of people the theatre and certainly Shakespeare is something they feel they should enjoy but often find difficult and boring. This production makes Shakespeare accessable and a joyful, life affirming experience....

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