WHEN Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors was first performed on December 28, 1594, at Gray's Inn in London, it seems that trouble kicked off big time.

The high-spirited audience got so out of hand a public enquiry "into great disorders and abuses" was held and the whole play ended up in such confusion that earned the production the title The Night of Errors.

Four hundred years later, the Festival Players, regarded as the country's top outdoor Shakespeare company, seems sure to avoid another Night of Errors.

To begin with, the production is in the safe hands of director Michael Dyer, who lives in Dormston, near Inkberrow, and is also the company's artistic director.

He is no stranger to tricky productions, having directed and narrated the stage version of Tolstoy's War and Peace in 1975.

But The Comedy of Errors throws up an entirely separate set of problems, not least of which the fact that it has two sets of twins, and each twin shares the same name.

"This is my sixth production of The Comedy of Errors, but I've never tried it before with just two actors playing the four twins," said Dyer.

"You have to re-jiggle a few speeches, but on the whole it doesn't matter if you don't know which twin is on stage, only that there is a person who is being mistaken for his twin.

"Each production is different. I would never repeat a production because I'd get bored."

The play follows Antipholus (Petros Emmanuel) and Dromio (Peter Gardiner) a master and servant from Syracuse who arrive in Ephesus unaware that their twins, also a master and servant of the same names, are in town.

On top of this, Egeon, (played by Dyer himself), an elderly merchant from Syracuse and father of Antipholus, arrives in Ephesus, but is arrested and must pay a huge fine or suffer the death penalty.

Later adapted into a Broadway musical, The Boys from Syracuse, The Comedy of Errors is believed to be one of Shakespeare's first plays despite not being printed until the 1623 Folio.

"It may not contain the greatest poetry ever written, but the staging shows a mastery of stage craft," said Dyer.

"He has technically produced a traditional farce which became popular in the 20th Century."

The production also features original music composed and directed by Johnny Coppin, the Festival Players' musical director.

The tour, which is coming to the grounds of Sounion, a private house in Kempsey, and playing at the Three Choirs Festival in Hereford, is also touring the length of the country and beyond.

"We are the only English company invited to perform at the International Shakespeare Festival, in Spain, in August," said Dyer.

But the Worcestershire performance holds a special significance for Dyer as it is in his home county and he has plans to bring more Festival Players productions to this part of the world.

The Comedy of Errors plays at Sounion in Kempsey at 5.30pm on Saturday, July 20 - tickets from 01905 820436 - and Hereford's Three Choirs Fringe Festival from Tuesday to Friday August 19 to 22 - tickets from 01432 265005.