A couple weeks ago I saw STC’s Comedy of Errors and I’m kind of obsessed, so I had to draw some fanart! The costumes! The sets! The songs! Genuinely such a great adaptation!
I want to draw the rest of the cast (and still might eventually) but I also wanted to post this while the show is still running so I can tell you to go see it if you’re able to make it to DC 🧡
In his recent memoir, Roger Daltrey of The Who writes about playing the Dromio twins in the BBC's "The Comedy of Errors" (1983).
Roger Daltrey, the lead vocalist of The Who, is also the author of a recent memoir, Thanks a Lot Mr. Kibblewhite: My Story...One passage, excerpted below, includes a Shakespearean tale: what it was like for Daltrey to act in one of the BBC’s TV movies of the plays, The Comedy of Errors (1983).
I think I got to give the two-fingered salute when I auditioned for The Comedy of Errors just after I’d finished The Beggar’s Opera. This was Shakespeare. This was my chance. They told me which bits we were going to read for the audition so I spent ages learning my lines by heart because I’m a very bad reader. And off I went, prepared. When I arrived, James Cellan Jones, this renowned director, was sitting there poker-faced and I just launched into it. Quite early on, maybe three or four lines in, he started laughing and after that it just got worse and worse. By the time I got to the end, he was pissing himself. I just assumed I’d cocked it up...
And I loved it. Here I was, working with a Shakespeare text, understanding it, getting the jokes. No one was talking down to me. I was involved and it was an extraordinary experience. It was only at the end, when the two Dromios were put side by side in the edit, that you could see how involved I’d become. The Dromio whose master treats him with more respect was a good two inches taller than the other one. Subconsciously, I’d shrunk to play the less fortunate twin.
Shakespeare naming another character ‘Dromio’ (which is literally pronounced like Romeo with a ‘D’) is the same energy as Thor naming his new team the ‘Revengers.’