by Jonathan Grant

Whether you enjoy The Globe’s new production of Comedy of Errors will depend very much upon your take on Shakespeare and his works. For the purist, each piece by the Bard should be taken extremely seriously, analysed in great depth and performed with due attention to every detail. For others, each piece should be true to genre — tragic works, tragic and comedies side-splitting. Where you sit in this debate (or stand, as is often the case at the Globe) will depend on how satisfied you feel as you walk away from director Chris Luscombe’s version of Comedy of Errors.

This Renaissance spin on Plautus’s Roman original is a boisterous tale of confusion and identity, set to the backdrop of a trade war between the city states of Syracuse and Ephesus. Full of dramatic irony, the increasingly hectic action is a frenzy of storms, shipwrecks, and creditors chasing debts, as estranged twin brothers (both called Antipholus) and estranged twin servants (both called Dromio) come face to face for the first time since their separation some 20 years hence.

Seemingly inspired by stalwarts of British comedy, the Carry On films and Monty Python sketches, Luscombe fuses the beatings dished out to the confused and luckless servants with comedic cymbal-crashing and similarly tongue-in-cheek musical devices to dish out a hearty portion of slapstick fun that the Globe audience gobbled down with gusto. Fittingly for this interpretation, Janet Bird’s choice of colourful costumes yelled “fun” and fitted a production determined not to get bogged down in the weighty plight of Egeon who, thanks to some dubious law, is sentenced to death at the beginning of the play and awaits his fate in solitude, hopeful that a mystery benefactor will rescue him.

Similarly we are treated to not one, but, as must be the case with this tale of twins, two fine hoodwink performances from our Antipholuses (Andrew Havill and Simon Wilson) whose physical similarities made them barely distinguishable. They taunt and tease the audience with a knowingness in phrase that belies their characters bemusement. There’s also fine support from Sarah Woodward, who played Adriana the put-upon wife of Antipholus of Ephesus with arm-waving derangement. Equally Laura Rees, the sometime mordant, sometime compassionate, Luciana is a perfect foil to Woodward as Adriana’s sister and beau of our other Antipholus.

There is much, though, to criticise if one so chooses. Should Luscombe have ignored the darker aspects of Shakespeare’s script? Debates will inevitably rage but, insomuch as this is a conscious choice, a reviewer must respect his decision and analyse the success in achieving his aims, rather than those you might have chosen.

Looking through that lens, the principal failings of this production stem from the meek mouth of Richard O’Callaghan playing the doomed Egeon but doubling as a timid dormouse, and the clumsy climax, which was worthy of more attention than the rather matter-of-fact thigh-slapping treatment it was given.

With those qualifications, “Carry On Comedy of Errors” is not a production for the purist, but good fun nevertheless.