Seven Ages

Comedy · c. 1594

Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors

Shakespeare’s shortest play and his purest farce: two sets of identical twins, separated in infancy, spend one day in the same city without knowing it.

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By the Seven Ages editors2 min read

Mistaken identity compounds at interest until the whole town is convinced someone is mad, possessed, or both.

Built on a Roman comedy of Plautus but faster and warmer, with a frame of loss and reunion that the late romances will remember. An ideal palate cleanser between tragedies, and the best answer to anyone who thinks Shakespeare isn’t funny.

Comedy of Errors on screen

1The Boys from Syracuse (1940)

Film · dir. A. Edward Sutherland · inspired by The Comedy of Errors

Rodgers and Hart musical adaptation

2The Comedy of Errors (1983)

TV film

BBC Television Shakespeare

3Big Business (1988)

Film · dir. Jim Abrahams · inspired by The Comedy of Errors

Twin mix-up premise, Midler and Tomlin

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