It looks as if the National, having had an exceptionally good run topped by One Man, Two Guvnors, has decided that the recipe works so well that it might as well repeat it to jazz up the young bard's Florentine farce. Alas, it makes a rather overwrought plot even harder to understand than the original — and let's just say that Shakespeare was still learning how to do exposition when he wrote the Comedy. I felt fully confused about relations between Ephesus and Syracuse, or what beef the two cities have with one another. That's even before everyone gets mixed up.

As the two masters, Henry's broad-beamed Antipholus and Chris Jarman as his twin are well-matched creators of unknowing chaos, though the broader belly-laughs are provided by their hapless twin-servants in nylon Arsenal T-shirts, suffering the sharp end of their bosses' misfortune and the occasional unintended erotic treat. The director Dominic Cooke, on loan from the Royal Court, lays on the multi-culti attitudes a bit thick — there's such a range of patois that Ephesus seems to have turned into an offshoot of sundry bits of Africa, coupled with the Caribbean, which adds about two more layers of bewilderment than the play is offering already.

Still, it romps along, not least thanks to the fabulous made-in-Essex performances of Adriana (Claudie Blakley) and her sister (Michelle Terry). The two manage to translate blank verse into Estuary English with droll sensitivity for the double-entendres which survive the passage of centuries. "Can either of you gentlemen tell me which one I dined with last night?" inquires Adriana nervously, as well she might, having thrown herself at her husband's brother. Cooke gives a piece which can be trite some welly, but doesn't know when to stop offering too much of a good thing.

We end up with men in white coats chasing characters round the stage. I'd say that's a definite sign that things have got out of hand. The play's the thing, even when it's played for laughs.