Although it had to be rebuilt extensively after World War Two, the Hall in the central London legal enclave of Gray’s Inn is to all intents and purposes the same space in which The Comedy Of Errors received its première recorded performance around Christmas 1594. There, for instance, is the minstrels’ gallery where one of the twin Dromio manservants would have popped up to bar the entrance to dinner of the other one and his master Antipholus (likewise a twin). Ah, and down there at floor level is the wheeled door flat that the Antic Disposition company use for the same routine.

Directors Ben Horslen and John Risebero set the action in 1929 in “the glamorous Bay of Ephesus Hotel”. The authorities of Ephesus are here pinstripe-suited mobsters, and a jazz band punctuates the proceedings. Basically, it’s Some Like It Hot with twins instead of drag.

A number of sharp ideas are apparent, but they hardly ever come off. The company’s physicality is for the most part sheepish, with two or three honourable exceptions. William de Coverly as Antipholus of Syracuse devotes immense energy but ends up cartooning his character. Keith Higinbotham as Dromio of Ephesus, in contrast, knows both when to turn it up and when to leave it at 10 instead of trying to push it to 11. Paul Sloss plays the minor character of Angelo not as a 1920s homosexual, but as a stereotyped 1920s idea of one, all hooting and mincing. Almost the same noises and gestures are put to better use by Philip Mansfield as the mountebank Doctor Pinch, whose shrieks and ’fluencing as he attempts to exorcise... er, I’ve forgotten which Antipholus it is... make it seem as if he’s playing a large human theremin.

There’s nothing wrong with staging the play like this, but when you’re doing so in this particular venue it seems a bit pointless to ignore the strong historical link. Of course, they only ignore it artistically, not commercially. The ticket prices charged by this largely post-student company for barely two hours, including interval, jazz numbers and a magic routine, are comparable to those at Shakespeare’s Globe and the RSC. It just ain’t worth it.

Written for the Financial Times.