A Comedy of Errors is a magnificently silly play; performed with great exuberance by The Pembroke Players, after having just returned from a three week tour in Japan. What the Japanese must have thought of the ludicrous plot featuring not one, but two sets of identical twins I cannot guess, but I for one thought it was imaginatively staged, enthusiastically performed, and above all very, very funny.

The acting was most remarkable, not so much for its brilliance (though brilliance was hardly lacking) but for its consistency. Every single actor managed to create a consistent, believable and engaging character – especially impressive as many actors were playing multiple roles. The stars of the show in terms of comic effect were of course the two Dromios, played by Bea Svistunenko and Rosanna Suppa, identical twins and servants to the two equally identical Antipholuses. Every actor added their own sense of humour to the play, from Kaiti Soultana’s squeaking protestations as the wronged Goldsmith, to Ed Limb’s completely bafflement as the other Antipholus’ wife claimed him as her husband. All the while Joanna Clarke, as the wife, Adriana, had a nice line in waspish snarkiness. Yet the show still had its serious moments – the plight of Egeon, in search of his lost wife and his twin sons and now sentenced to death, gave an emotional contrast to the slapstick comedy and added depth to the play.

As for the production it was stylishly done – I was particularly impressed by the attention to detail in costume and hair styling. Effective costumes helped add to the similarity of the ‘twins’, so that they actually did look enough alike to make the case of mistaken identity plausible enough for the play’s purpose. The addition of live violin music, performed by Rose Reade (who also played Luciana in the play) was a nice touch, and throughout the play the staging added to the humour and brought the performance up to date. If I was being pernickety I’d say the performance could have done without the interpretive dance towards the beginning of the play (unavoidable in any Cambridge production at the moment) but the actors’ boisterous modern interpretation of the jig traditionally performed at the end of Shakespeare plays more than made up for it.

On the whole it was a great play, admirably performed and produced. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen a play in which the performers seemed to be having quite so much fun.