Trite Comedy, no terrors

Dominic Dromgoole's new broom, fresh-air approach as the Globe's director has liberated and revitalised the place. Designers are now clearly encouraged to develop or even transform the stage, instead of leaving it embalmed within its permanent Elizabethan framework. As a result, the Globe has shed its reputation for predictability and its appetite for the lowest common denominators.

So, it comes as a disappointing surprise that Christopher Luscombe's production of Shakespeare's craziest farce, in which two sets of identical twins converge on the city of Ephesus and cause no end of confusion, should strike such comically trite and superficial notes. There is no attempt to explore the play's darker, nightmarish elements or bring to life the magical finale.

Janet Bird's inventive design establishes a distinct sense of city and varied homesteads, with two-tier view of entrances, alley and passageways, front doors and upper rooms. Yet this alluring potential is undercut by Luscombe's old-fashioned staging, which resorts to a sort of Carry-On running in groups or of huddling in clusters, as bewilderment spreads like fog.

The director puts excess emphasis on buffoonery and slapstick, with mime and music to represent the violence inflicted on the identical Dromio servants.

As the Antipholus twin living in Ephesus who finds himself locked out of his house, apparently betrayed, arrested and imprisoned, Simon Wilson conveys scant comic fury or bemusement while generating strong audience sympathy and amusement.

The Antipholus from Syracuse, who is treated as if he belonged to the neighbourhood, succumbs to the worrying notion that he has come upon an unreal world possessed by witchcraft. Yet his feelings of panic, by turns funny and disquieting, are quite missing from Andrew Havill's bland performance.

It is the bearded, browbeaten Dromio servants, acted with mournful assurance by Sam Alexander and Eliot Giuralarocca who capture the right tone.

Sarah Woodward, slightly grotesque as the resident Antipholus's wife and Cate Debenham-Taylor's all too contemporary tart, though not Richard O'Callaghan's unintelligible Egeon, fit comfortably in the production's crowd-pleasing, familiar mould.

Until 7 October. Information: 020 7401 9919.

The Comedy Of Errors