The Comedy of Errors at The Globe

Oh unhappy day, the Globe outdoor season has come to an end. But, to be honest, looking out of the window right now is not inspiring me to purchase a ticket to stand shivering under the clouds with rain dripping off my nose. Not even to watch the hilarious adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors again. Although, now I think of it, watching the Dromios run and trip their way across a minefield of puddles clothed in sopping robes would potentially add even MORE hilarity to the unrelenting slapstick scenes. If that’s possible.

The ‘ante-show’ was utterly delightful, with Dromio of Ephesus (Jamie Wilkes) trying anything and everything to get that last item of laundry down from the washing line pinned high above the stage. This was a play in which I really appreciated the choreography, and no more than at this point. Dromio’s uncertainty and wobbly movements were such that the whole audience gasped when he fell from the top rung of a ladder. Having got in the mood for the light-hearted physical comedy that was to come, the first scene was, I have to say, a slight disappointment. The Comedy of Errors isn’t a play you go to see for its plotline by any accounts, but Egeon’s explanation of the happenings before the play are crucial to understanding the sets of twins situation – the foundation on which the entire play rests. For me, James Laurenson’s portrayal didn’t quite match up to the emotional, heartbroken old man I had imagined. The speech seemed rather dry, and at times I couldn’t even hear it, meaning that a few audience members looked unsurprisingly lost once he had finished. I did appreciate the image of a lonely widower who has lost all hope, but felt the speech really needed to be amped up to provide more of a setting for the rest of the play.

From then on in, the audience spent two hours ranging from quiet titters to raucous roaring consistently. From the word go, there was no let up from the slapstick scenes, with props being utilised here there and everywhere. There was the oversized fish used for slapping people around the face, the octopus being thrown all around the stage, and of course the turkey with which one of the Dromios spent the majority of a scene with his head in. Every stage direction and every aspect was amped up to its fullest – the witchdoctor scene was a particular highlight, complete with a magical feast for the eyes and ears.

Each cast member was a comic genius in their own right. I found Adriana, played by Hattie Ladbury, specialised in subtle asides and sarcastic improvisations to put her own stamp on the role of neglected wife. Becci Gemmill, meanwhile, played the perfect princess Luciana, balancing innocence with jealous sisterly rivalry to a tee. Out of the four main men, I really couldn’t pick out my favourite twin from each set. Despite knowing the story, I had to double check which Antipholus/Dromio had entered the stage each time, even if they didn’t look absolutely identical, they had sure learnt how to act it. Antipholus of Ephesus (Matthew Needham) was certainly the angrier twin, really mincing the physical scenes for all they were worth, whilst the connection between Dromio and Antipholus of Syracuse seemed that little bit realer (Brodie Ross and Simon Harrison respectively).

Throughout the play, I was looking forward to the end. No, I was by no means desperate for the performance to finish, but I was desperate to witness the reunion of the brothers. To be honest, I was expecting it to be 100% comical. It certainly was comical, as with every other scene in the play, but there was an extremely emotional and touching element to the closing scene, which was unexpected. The two Dromios were the ones who really stole the show in the end, with the final moments given to their brotherly reunion. A mixture of embarrassed bashfulness with social awkwardness and subdued excitement, the two really captured what the situation might actually be like to be reunited with a twin sibling decades later – totally bizarre and stultifying. Once the Dromios finally made their way off-stage, hand in hand, the audience erupted into emotive cheers and applause. A perfectly unanticipated touching ending to an evening of genuine confusion and genuine laughter.

Julius Caesar at The Globe

I have officially started my MA at King’s College and The Globe in Shakespeare Studies. This is exciting for a number of reasons. Firstly, living in London for the first time! Ok, maybe it’s dawned on me that this is less exciting and more terrifying and daunting compared to what now seems teeny tiny lovely Brighton. I’m just about getting to grips with it…I think. But something that has not become any less exciting is going to The Globe every day! Also being able to geek out with all the other geeking outers on the course who don’t bat an eyelid at a little (a lot) geeking out. Our first outing as a group was to see The Globe’s production of Julius Caesar.

Yawn yawn, Julius Caesar, it’s only redeeming feature is the much quoted and surprisingly useful ‘et tu brute?’. Apart from that it’s just boring men boring the rest of us with their boring man issues. Right? WRONG. As may or may not be obvious by now, I have a soft spot for Shakespeare. But we all have those plays we think the world could do without. Probably doesn’t help that I studied the play at the tender age of 13 and all I remember is a rather quaint cartoon (the creepy over-realistic kind, rather than the fun cute kind) of the play being put in front of us perhaps in the vain hope of engaging us. Well, I could now go back and tell my Year 9 teacher that if they’d taken us to see THIS production every single one of us would be JC fanatics to this day.

Before everyone had even taken their seats or picked the perfect standing position, there were plebeians and townsmen ramming a box through the audience, mounting it and chanting ‘CAESAR CAESAR’, forcing us to join in. We were no longer 21^st century audience members dubiously waiting for one of the plays widely acknowledged as LESS exciting than some others, oh no. We were members of the Roman public, part of the mob, pawns in a political crisis, screaming the name of whoever had taken our fancy that day. But more on the mob later.

Caesar (George Irving) emerged. The very first thing that struck me was his humour! Of all things, Caesar was a joker. Maybe an inadvertent, over-cocky and over-assured joker, but a joker nonetheless. After the original spectacle of Caesar’s first scene, complete with a lifesize cow swinging from the ceiling, among other things, my stars of the show came on for their first scene. Brutus and Cassius, often imagined by me as middle-aged men desperate with jealousy, instead materialised as rather dishy socialist heroes (insert cheer here). OK the heroes bit is up for debate, but I think that loaded phrase really encapsulates the political element that makes this play SO exciting – especially the fact that it totally resonates with today’s world. Marc Antony (Luke Thompson) stole the end of the first half, subtly sarcastic lines such as ‘I am no orator as Brutus’ and ‘I only speak right on’ jumped out of his manipulative tone. I felt they could have been said by any Tom Dick or Harry, or maybe Ed, Nick or Dave…the mobilisation of the electric mob mentality that was charging round the entire playhouse momentarily took over from the specificities of the Caesar plot and exploited the vulnerable malleability of people’s opinion through speech alone.

I want to briefly return to Brutus, played by Tom McKay, as this Brutus does now hold a special place in my heart. My first impression was that the actor was a little uneasy and slightly static. But then I realised, he was being such a realistic Brutus that I had almost missed it! Brutus’ internal anguish and indecision was so perfectly epitomised in the tone of every single word he spoke, every movement he made, and every expression of the eyes (I’ll give that as my reason for why I couldn’t stop staring at them). It was because of this close attention to each detail that the exact moment where Brutus switches from hesitant senate member to ring-leading conspirator was so palpable. The relationship between Brutus and Cassius (Anthony Howell) was so emotional that people around me were shedding a tear. Theirs became a love story and it worked perfectly. By the end, when Brutus reveals his wife’s death, and the ghost of Caesar comes to him (spoiler: Caesar dies), his development comes full circle: he returns to the first Brutus we met, full of courage and dignity but hopelessly conscience haunted and pragmatic.

So as not to ramble on TOO much, I have just a few more concise highlights I feel I must mention. The use of music was something I haven’t experienced too much in the theatre before, and the mix between Latin singing and more contemporary, unusual tunes added a trauma and emotion to the traditional bloody murder scenes – a great juxtaposition of spectacle and sombre mood. In particular, the harp song which Lucius plays in the second half as Brutus paces his tent cemented this as my favourite scene by far. The jig at the end was also a new experience for me, I just loved that no matter the mood at the close of the play (spoiler alert #2: it doesn’t end well), everyone breaks into a jolly, energetic dance together to end the show – so uplifiting!

One final thing – tiny details are something I love to seek out in any performance, and Decius’ slow, subtle peeling of a tangerine in the night conspiratorial scene had me in (albeit inappropriate) stitches.

PS DON’T MISS the twist at the end. Pure interpretative gold. Ok I’m done.

It’s on until 11^th October so DO get tickets here!