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Picture
THE COMEDY OF ERRORS
SOUTHEND SHAKESPEARE COMPANY
An Open Air Tour Production
​Review by Tom King

While the drama of Wimbledon plays out south of London, another British summer time and weather-sensitive institution has returned to Essex.  Southend Shakespeare Company lunched its annual outdoor production on the weekend.

This year's Bard choice, The Comedy of Errors, is a very early play from the canon, written when the young Shakespeare was clearly finding his wings as a writer.  You will listen in vain for any great quotable lines, any gorgeous verse.  Immortal characters are lacking.  But one side of Shakespeare's genius is already apparent in this play - his comic stagecraft. 

The creator of Lear and Hamlet is also a also a deft puppet-master when it comes to farce. He knows how to handle the twists and turns of the plot, the madcap characters, the swift succession of events that plant sane men and women into ever more insane situations, and the final swirl of chaos as all the characters finally confront one another. And boy does he know how to raise a laugh along the way.

Out of the material obligingly provided by the Bard, SSC director Vanessa Osborn spins an enjoyable comic candyfloss that is packed with laughter and so packed with action that at east one member of the audience, a dog, had to be removed when it all became too exciting.
Mrs Osborn knows how to use the large acreage available in outdoor productions. The performers spend much of the time hurtling around at high speed, as if in a football game where both teams of players have forgotten which side they are playing for.

This is a perfect way to choreograph The Comedy of Errors, which is based on the mayhem of mistaken identification created in the city of Syracuse when two identical pairs of twins hit the streets at the same time.

But it not just a case of physical comedy. The setpiece dialogue scenes are also staged with aplomb. Most of the verbal interplay is in the hands of the two Antipholuses, Antipholus of Syracuse and Antipholus of Ephesus (Andrew Sugden and David Hannington), and their identical looking servants, Dromio and Dromio (James Carter and Madeleine Ayres). All four bring an appearance of easy grace to their quickfire patter routines. Yet the work put into mastering these increasingly confused and rapidly accelerating double-acts must have been considerable.

There is also a nice supporting turn from John Newell as a not-very-competent magician whose attempt to stem the hocus-pocus only makes matters worse.

A highpoint of recent SSC productions has been the dance routines, notably the hilarious country Morris dance in The Winter's Tale. The Comedy of Errors keeps up this good work. Taking its cue from middle eastern setting, it suddenly and unexpectedly erupts into a belly dance routine, performed for comic effect, but also, it seemed to me, performed pretty expertly. Plaudits, then, for the three oriental dancers, Olivia Stewart, Sarah Swain, and director Vanessa Osborn, three, female members of SSC whose wriggling and shaking talents would surely be welcome in any bazaar from Cairo to Baghdad.

Another inspired comic touch comes from the casting of Ross Norman-Clarke, normally associated with alpha-male parts like Falstaff, as the Mother Superior of the local convent where the rolling tumbleweed of the comedy eventually carries all the players. This allows for a long session of pantomime dame comedy that has eroded a few more laughter lines into my face. It is not giving away too much of a secret to say that the abbess turns out the be the long-lost wife of another character, Egeon (James Harrington). The look on Mr Harrington's face when he contemplates the woman he remembers as a slip of a girl, is a three-act comedy in its own right.

Costume designer Madeleine Ayres' wardrobe, colourful and inventive, adds enormously to the richness of the production, with the two decorated fezzes worn by the Dromios a highpoint in more ways than one. All in all, another delicious outdoor production from Southend Shakespeare players, one that once again will figure high in the summer memories of anyone who sees it.
​
The Comedy of Errors
Sunday July 10, 3pm, Southchurch Hall Gardens
Wed July 13 to Sat July 16, 7.45pm, Leigh Library Gardens
For full detail see www.southendshakespeare.org.uk

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