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The Comedy of Errors

Published Monday 18 June 2007 at 09:55 by Pat Ashworth

This is Shakespeare for the groundlings, a lunatic production delivered with reckless intent by a bunch of six actors with a bandwagon in the open air. It is delicious. There are shameless borrowings from panto in the song, In Old Ephesus, and in gags featuring myopic merchants and mad minstrels. Bawdy business with a rope end is wickedly done and wholly without offence. They have instant rapport with the audience and the ad-libbing is unabashed. A more rumbustious take on Comedy of Errors would be hard to find. Yet the crucial elements of this complicated tale are all there, and given that two actors play a set of twins each, the story is surprisingly easy to follow. Robert Laughlin gives an outrageous performance as Antipholus times two and Kee Ramsorrun is inexhaustible as both Dromios. The reunion of all four characters is masterly. The sides of the bandwagon drop down and get hauled back up to create an Ephesus with a Turkish flavour that extends to a ridiculous camel. Aemilia (Kerry Steed) in the guise of a scary nun repels boarders at the Priory by hanging on to the lintel and kicking out with her feet. Polly Banwell is a firebrand of an Adriana, Mark Peachey milks every opportunity as two Merchants and Andrew McGillan manages to keep a straight face as Angelo the Goldsmith. They turn strolling minstrel in the interval, play through the rain and need no amplification. What a troupe - and how Shakespeare would have loved them.

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