Review: THE COMEDY OF ERRORS, Gray's Inn Hall, 22 August 2016

Take a pinch of Some Like It Hot, stir in a little Laurel and Hardy, add live music, sensational costumes and some terrible puns - then set the whole shebang in the very place where it was first performed a mere 422 years ago, and what do you get? A unique experience for one, a raucous night's entertainment for two and a sense of wonder at theatre's undiminished power for three.

Antic Disposition is back in one of its unique venues for a unique take on Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors, a madcap miasma of misapprehension and misbehaviour.

We're all guests in the lobby of the upscale Bay of Ephesus Hotel when a pair of gangsters - and no pair ever looked more like gangsters - accost an elderly man, accusing him of hailing from Syracuse and therefore banned from Ephesus on pain of death. He's there searching for his twins, separated at an early age in a shipwreck with two other twins being groomed to act as their servants. Both sets of twins (unbeknownst to each other) are in the Hotel Ephesus and they really are identical - hence the errors in recognising who is who and the comedy that ensues.

By setting the show in 1929, directors John Risebero and Ben Horslen can costume their actors in bias-cut dresses with sequins for the girls and long tailored jackets and correspondent shoes for the boys - everyone looks absolutely fabulous (though I shudder to think of the dry cleaning bill!). There's room too for plenty of sultry singing from siren Susie Broadbent (in full Marilyn mode) and some excellent playing from the actors stepping out of character to join the band. The songs provide a perfectly judged pause in action that's fast and furious from the outset.

As the two double acts, William de Coverly and Andrew Venning (Syracuse) and Alex Hooper and Keith Higinbotham (Ephesus) have a lot of fun being mistaken for each other, incredulous at what they are supposed to have done and not done (in a Wodehousean plot device, a gold chain is "missing"), with the two servant Dromios clownishly physical in their pursuit of laughs.

They get good support too from the ensemble, amongst whom Philip Mansfield and Louise Templeton ham it up mercilessly as hopeless magician Doctor Pinch and his pissed-off assistant, while Ellie Ann Lowe and Giovanna Ryan strut about, angry, sexy and ultimately forgiving (just), as the wife and wife-to-be of the Antipholuses of Ephesus and Syracuse.

It's a breathless couple of hours full of wit and, especially when the older characters speak, wisdom too, and much of it in the blank verse that really transports you back in time if not in place. If the acoustics sometimes suffocated the words (and the music could do with just a little scaling back to push the singing forward), that'll be sorted as the run settles - and it's a price worth paying for the "event location".

And while it's easy to spot Marilyn, look out for a very brief homage to Tony and Jack too: a lovely detail in a lovely show.

The Comedy of Errors continues at Gray's Inn Hall until 1 September.

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