Comedy of Errors, The

Synopsis: Video recording, using a single, fixed camera, of the 1983 Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of The Comedy of Errors. Directed by Adrian Noble with Zoe Wanamaker as Adriana and Henry Goodman as Dromio of Ephesus.
Language: English
Country: Great Britain
Medium: Video
Technical information: Colour / Sound
Recording date: 4 Jan 1984
Duration: 140 feet

Notes: At the start of the Stratford season John Dicks played Solinus and Dr Pinch, Peter McEnery played Antipholus of Ephesus and Emma Watson played the Courtezan. Later these parts were taken by Anthony O’Donnell, Miles Anderson and Tina Jones respectively.
General: "Set in the port of Ephesus, the merchant inhabitants flap about like a bunch of circus folk in oversized boots, striped tights and bowler hats. There is even a silly policeman on a bicycle. Ultz is the designer, and playfulness shades into fashionable originality in the case of Jane Booker’s Luciana, a frothy pink, tight-waisted doll with a stunning ice-cream cone hair-do. The two Dromios wear the statutory baggycheck pants and scarlet ping pong noses and the profusion of thumps and wallops is accompanied by appropriate percussive noises from the orchestra sunk into the centre of the stage." Rosalind Carne, The Guardian (11 August 1983).
History: Press night 9 August 1983
Stills: Stills from, and design notes on, the production are available on the Arts and Humanities Performing Arts Data Service (AHDS) at http://ahds.ac.uk/performingarts/collections/designing-shakespeare.htm
Reviews: Roger Warren, Shakespeare Quarterly 34 (1983), pp 451-60 (review-article).

Name: Royal Shakespeare Company
Web: https://www.rsc.org.uk External site opens in new window
Address: Royal Shakespeare Theatre
Waterside
Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire
CV37 6BB

British Universities Film & Video Council