IN his 1979 Schoolmaster sketch, Rowan Atkinson regaled his shambolic schoolboys with: "The Comedy of Errors has the joke of two people looking like each other. Twice."

And that's it. That's the joke. Two sets of twins, one high-born, one low-born, are separated by a shipwreck but at the beginning of the play, the Syracusan halves Antipholus and Dromio arrive in Ephesus where, unknowingly, their twins abide.

Cue two hours of misunderstandings, chases, fights, innuendoes and mayhem which have been the life-blood of the farce from Plautus to Brian Rix.

This is one of Shakespeare's earliest comedies, without the complex plots which would give a darker feel to the likes of Twelfth Night or The Tempest and director Nancy Meckler has gone straight for the comic jugular in a production whose design seems to borrow from a rich variety of sources - from Hogarth's grotesques to the Beano, from Restoration Comedy to Benny Hill.

Right from the start the atmosphere is of a travelling circus - the actors and the band invade the stage and entertain incessantly until the final whistle when, with a sigh of relief, all is revealed.

In the meantime, the single joke is sustained brilliantly by a cast whose energies are tested as much as their acting skills. This is a simply wonderful night of laughter entertainment.

Special mention must be made of Jonathan Singer who, in his debut season, has already given an outstanding Puck, and the pivotal role of the Trader in the sensational new play The American Pilot. His Dromio of Syracuse is a comic masterpiece and the description of his encounter with the amorous rotund cook ('she is spherical, like a globe; I could find out countries in her') had the audience in fits.

The play runs in repertory until October 29. Box Office 0870 609 1110.

Review by STEVE EVANS