Comedy of Errors

Published Thursday 25 October 2007 at 12:05 by Natalie Anglesey

Identical twins, mistaken identity and a shipwreck are among the ingredients in one of Shakespeare’s earliest comedies - themes which he continued to explore in later works.

Nancy Meckler, from Shared Experience, has restaged her successful production of two years ago with a new cast for a national tour which opened at the Lyric Theatre.

All did not go smoothly. After the musicians finished playing in the opening scene, there was a slight hiatus before the speeches began, a dummy head fell into the audience and at the opening of the second half, the curtain went up with the cast waiting to begin.

These may seem first-night slips, but this wasn’t the first night and the carnival atmosphere was in danger of turning into pantomime, complete with the line-up at the end. This may have been Meckler’s original intention but the mistakes gave an amateur feel to a performance which was otherwise entertaining.

There are good performances from Jason Merrells as Antipholus of Syracuse while his twin, Antipholus of Ephesus, is played by his real-life brother Simon, so they looked alike, although why they both had northern accents is questionable.

The main laughs were won by twin servants, Iain McKee, as Dromio of Syracuse, while Chris New plays Dromio of Ephesus. The comedy is played broadly, the Grand Guignol look is fun, the music appreciated but, far from the expected ecstatic reception, the laughter during this accessible production was patchy until the end.