HOW many actors does it take to perform Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors, dramatis personae of 15 plus extra? The answer is five – and you hardly miss a thing.
The Festival Players, formed in 1986 and an all-male troupe since 2014, has chosen the hilarious play of identical twins, mistaken identities, lost love and marital strife for its 2026 tour, and for its fourth performance it came to the picturesque setting of Shaftesbury Abbey ruins on a beautiful summer’s night. Playing to a sold out “house”, the high-energy, quickfire and hugely entertaining play delighted the audience – even distracting them from their picnics.
Before the action started I listened in to a few of my fellow audients, some scrabbling for the best alfresco spread, and some commenting that they always came to these (open air?) plays, but never understood what was going on and didn’t know the story at the end.
The five actors in Gary Crankson’s production certainly put that to rights, in a play famous for its confusions, and even with the same actors playing both Antipholuses and both Dromios. Some of the characters are even created by bunched sheets, masks and very stylish hats, but no worse for that!
As a brief synopsis, Egeon and his wife Aemelia (both played by Mark Spriggs) have been separated and shipwrecked, each taking with them one of their twin sons Antipholus, and one of his companion twins, Dromio. (It is not vouchsafed by Festival or by Shakespeare which of the parents forgot the names of the other two bairns). Years later, Antipholus of Syracuse decides to leave home and takes his servant Dromio with him. Seven years later still, Egeon leaves Syracuse to search for his son. That’s when the play starts. We meet Egeon, a political prisoner in Ephesus, condemned to death for his intrusion. Co-incidentally, at the same time, the Syracusan A and D have arrived in Ephesus, and are amazed to be greeted as friends, lovers and even a husband by the locals, none of whom they have ever seen before. You’ve got it. The other twins had pitched up here and, of course, they look identical. And the fun really begins.
Ray Murphy plays the Antipholi, one an angry and tyrannical patriarch, the other a very confused visitor who has fallen for a woman said to be the sister of his wife. He is accompanied by Ross Samuel (now the artistic director of The Festival Players) as both Dromios – both soundly beaten by their confused and uncomprehending masters, both run ragged and one pursued by the forceful advances of a very unwelcome suitor.
The brilliant company continues with Christopher Commander as a gaoler, a disappointed wife, various merchants and a very colourful courtesan, and Peter Vicson as the dependable duke, sister of the disappointed wife, a merchant, a goldsmith and a very, very peculiar steam-punk doctor. Mark Spriggs is not only father and mother to the Antipholi, but also various kitchen maids, an executioner, a mother abbess and a messenger – and lots of the time with a guitar to accompany the songs.
It is all huge fun, tells the story and brings what is sometimes considered as a fusty old play to vibrant, colourful, energetic life. I can’t recommend this tour more highly, and there are 17 more opportunities to see it across the south and west this summer.
GP-W
www.thefestivalplayersinternational.co.uk