Shakespeare’s shortest and funniest play, The Comedy of Errors, rarely fails to delight audiences. Propeller’s production, delivered with all the invention for which this all-male company is known, supplied two hour of uninhibited joyful good humour.

A dry eye in the house? With apologies for the vulgarity that a show such as this engenders, I am surprised that there was a dry seat.

The cosy Watermill Theatre, festooned with fairground lighting (designs Michael Pavelka), suggested all the sun and fun of a Spanish fiesta as the full house settled. Director Edward Hall have us a chorus of straw-hatted musicians to preface the action and then, as it continued at a cracking pace, to underline it with interventions instrumental and vocal.

A particuylarly felicitous touch was the ping of a xylophone that followed every mention of the word ‘chain’. Since a chain, a valuable gold one, figures very prominently in the the multiple misunderstandings that best the two Antipholuses (Dugald Bruce- Lockhart, pictured, and Sam Swainsbury) and their servants the Dromios (Richard Frame, pictured, and Jon Trenchard) , it may be imagined that the comic effect becomes significantly heightened through repetition.

Performances across the cast were of an exceptionally high standard, as it always the case with this excellent company.