SOURCE: Carnegy, Patrick. Review of The Comedy of Errors. Spectator (29 April 2000): 43-4.

In the following excerpted review, Carnegy admires director Lynne Parker's farcical staging of The Comedy of Errors with the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Memorial Theatre in 2000 and praises individual performances in the production.

The Comedy of Errors is not, I imagine, a text that anyone other than a Gradgrind finds himself re-reading for pleasure. On the stage, it's another matter. It's a play that can explode into life when taken to town in the right way, and that's exactly what happens with the hilariously invigorating show in the Memorial Theatre. The director, making her RSC debut, is Lynne Parker. She's given the company an irresistible hit. Parker's conceit is indebted to screwball Hollywood comedy, reminding you that the play was once a 1940s musical called The Boys from Syracuse.

The milieu for The Comedy is...