Have you ever received a text from a family member or a friend who is traveling and needs money? How do you know someone is who they say they are? In today’s world full of identity theft, digital passports and cyber security — the idea of stealing identities seems quite new.

But what happens when you realise that a writer who died in 184 BC already wrote a play about the concept of stolen identities? And what if you learn that 400 years ago another play by a world-famous author addresses this very same issue?

“What are the chances of finding your exact lookalike? Folk wisdom has it that everyone has a doppelganger; somewhere out there there’s a perfect duplicate of you.” — BBC (Zaria Gorvett)

This idea of being taken for someone else Plautus extrapolates in the story of The Menaechmi — and Shakespeare takes it a notch further in A Comedy of Errors by adding another set of twins to the mix.

Find out for yourself — performed by the We Love Shakespeare Ensemble at Mike’s Badhuistheater, 27 & 28 June 2026.