The Guardian Weekly

The Comedy of Errors

Shakespeare’s Globe, London

★★★★☆ At Shakespeare’s Globe, London, until 29 July

There’s a lightness and ease about Sean Holmes’ Shakespeare productions that’s not to be scoffed at. The audience interaction reels us in without overdoing it and the actors seem comfortable with the text, happy to embellish the Bard’s dialogue with their own comic gifts.

The context remains relatively untouched yet the show feels contemporary – largely down to a sort of droll knowingness that runs through the ensemble. We’re still in the city of Ephesus, where Antipholus of Syracuse and his servant Dromio have come to seek out their long-lost twin brothers. Antipholus’s estranged parents are also in town, and endless incidents of mistaken identity ensue.

This is one of Shakespeare’s shorter comedies and Holmes has chosen to gallop through with no interval. He keeps the pace motoring and the visual gags amped up high. The approach only starts to flag in the final third.

Michael Elcock, as Antipholus of Syracuse, has a great line in comic yelps and gobsmacked expressions. Jordan Metcalfe, as Dromio of Syracuse, scampers about the stage with excellent comic timing and George Fouracres attacks Dromio of Ephesus’s speeches with virtuosic speed and precision.

The only thing missing is a little stillness. Time to sit with Shakespeare’s language. These snatched moments lie almost solely with Paul Rider’s Egeon. As he describes the shipwreck that “unjustly divorced” his family, he brings us all along with him on his torrid journey. Miriam Gillinson

Culture Exhibition

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2023-06-02T07:00:00.0000000Z

2023-06-02T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://theguardianweekly.pressreader.com/article/282428468569514

Guardian/Observer