The Comedy of Errors (1979)

Review

The fresh and adventurous approach of the Youth Action Theatre carried through yet another ambitious production last week - The Comedy of Errors, with the music and songs used in the recent Royal Shakespeare Company version.

I have learned to judge anything the precocious young players at the Hampton Court Theatre do by high standards, but was still very surprised that they managed to make such a professional job of Shakespeare's mistaken identity romp.

Despite the fact that the twin brothers in the comic webb of confusion looked nothing like each other, except for costume, both Nik Harman and Jonathan King made a good partnership, helped a great deal by the two Dromios - Nigel Hadley and Philip Bliss - who contributed most of the humour and a vast amount of energy to the drama.

Of the ladies in the play (which was directed by Eric Yardley), Annabel Giles was supreme. Graceful, yet fiery when she needed to be, she was a model for the rest of the cast to follow, and was only equalled in stage presence by Stephen Bentley with a colourful Doctor Pinch.

One thing which was particularly clear in the first act was that the players are better actors than singers, although the second half songs were much better. The musicians did a fine job, with keyboards player Peter Roberts deserving several curtain calls.

The Comedy of Errors

Production Information

Review

Cast

Crew