Skip to product information
1 of 0

The Comedy of Errors

Regular price £85.00
Sale price £85.00 Regular price £85.00
Sale Sold out
This book offers a comprehensive performance history of The Comedy of Errors, examining how stage, screen and musical adaptations from the eighteenth century to today have reshaped Shakespeare’s fa...
Read More
  • Format:
  • 16 March 2027
View Product Details
The Comedy of Errors traces the performance history of Shakespeare’s play from its earliest appearances in the late sixteenth century to the present day. Moving across stage and screen, the book examines theatrical productions, television adaptations, musical reworkings and cinematic versions, situating them within changing cultures of comedy. It explores how the play’s farcical structures of doubling, mistaken identity and reunion have been reshaped by shifting understandings of gender, sexuality, race and social class. Drawing on examples from the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre and Shakespeare’s Globe, alongside adaptations such as The Boys from Syracuse and the Hindi film Angoor, the study reveals how performers and directors have negotiated both the play’s comic exuberance and its troubling implications. By placing performance at the centre of interpretation, the book shows how social attitudes continually redefine what audiences find humorous.
files/i.png Icon
Price: £85.00
Pages: 264
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Imprint: Manchester University Press
Series: Shakespeare Performed
Publication Date: 16 March 2027
ISBN: 9781526150929
Format: Hardcover
BISACs:

LITERARY CRITICISM / Shakespeare, Literary studies: plays and playwrights, PERFORMING ARTS / Theater / History & Criticism, DRAMA / Shakespeare, Literary studies: c 1600 to c 1800, Literature: history and criticism

REVIEWS Icon
Robert Shaughnessy is Professor of Theatre at Guildford School of Acting, University of Surrey

Prologue: Classic comedy
1 Original comedy
2 English comedy
3 Alternative comedy
4 Screen comedy
5 Musical comedy
Epilogue: Global comedy
Appendix
References
Index