The Comedy of Errors

Regarded by some as Shakespeare's first play, The Comedy of Errors comes to The Rose Theatre Bankside for the first time. Elements of farce combined with touchingly emotional themes of loss and reconciliation would return much later in more sombre ways, in works such as Twelfth Night and The Winter's Tale. In The Comedy of Errors the comedy is dominant but the skill of Shakespeare's composition is often overlooked in a play that's more famous for its title than its content.

An early example of Shakespeare's cosmopolitanism, based on Plautus, set in Ephesus (Turkey), and with Sicilian travellers among its lead characters.