BURSTING on to the lawns to the banging of the drum, The GB Theatre Company’s fiery farce truly lived up to Shakespeare’s title, The Comedy Of Errors.

The acting troupe, led by founder and Tauntonian Barrie Palmer, kept the pace rapid, the quips spicy, and the action lively for the audience assembled at Cothelstone Manor.

As one of The Bard’s earlier works, ‘Errors’ is a riot of confusion and mistaken identity.

A father, Egeon, (played here by Barrie) takes the search for his wife and one of his twin sons, decades after a shipwreck in which he lost both, to Ephesus… only to be immediately locked up, as a man from enemy Syracuse.

Both identical twin men, both dubbed Antipholus, flanked by their identical twin slaves, Dromio, are in Ephesus of course.

And with one wife convinced her otherwise confused ‘spouse’ is cheating, the farce was as feisty as it gets.

Best bits: seeing Joyce Branagh as a bearded quack, flying holy water maniacally around his head at one enraged and bemused brother.

Next she was the matronly Abbess with her clipped ‘Queen’s English’, revealing herself (voice cracked) as Egeon’s long-lost wife.

Satisfying too was seeing the actors’ faces contorted like grotesques, as they struggled to work out who was who, and what was what.

The fool-like Dromios, just like Tweedledum and Tweedledee, were a treat too, springing off ‘stage’ like Morecambe and Wise.

Missed GB Theatre Company this time around? Keep tabs on them at www.gbtheatrecompany.com

DAISY BLACKLOCK