‘It is short and sparky’
Magic, mistakes and Vaudeville: Davies meets American actress Valerie Cutko ahead of her appearance in Magic Goes Wrong at the Theatre Royal Bath
BACK with their biggest and most daring comedy catastrophe to date, multi award winning Mischief Theatre return to the stage in Bath next week with their hilarious new show, created with magic legends Penn & Teller.
Direct from the West End, Magic Goes Wrong follows a hapless gang of magicians as they stage an evening of grand illusion to raise cash for charity. But as the magic turns to mayhem, accidents spiral out of control - and so does their fundraising target!
Raising the bar with their dare-devil stunts, jaw-dropping feats and irresistible comedy genius, Mischief’s Magic Goes Wrong was first seen in the West End in December 2019, where the show premiered at the Vaudeville Theatre. As well as touring the UK in 2021 and 2022, Magic Goes Wrong has resumed performances in London at its new home the Apollo Theatre.
Described as ‘joyously silly and entirely wonderful’, I asked what attracted American-born, London-based actress Valerie Cutko to the show?
“It is short and sparky. It is silly but it has a heart. There’s a sense of people doing their best but things still go wrong. They’re putting a brave face on it; making the best of things and going forward. I have never done the combination of work that I have to do in this show, which involves being sawn in half and appearing from nowhere. Also there are sparkly costumes, a lovely piece of original music, and energetic and skilled company members around me. And it is just the fun of coming to new places,” said a most delightful Valerie.
“My character Eugenia is patron of The Magical Arts. The show says I am possibly the mother of the central character Sophisticato, who is the son of a very famous and successful musician - the original Sophisticato - who had recently died in a tragic accident underneath the weight of all of his magic acts, which have collapsed upon him. The premise of the show is we are a charity fundraiser to assist the victims of disasters in magic and have pulled together, perhaps not the first tier of magical talent, to do their act to raise this money.”
Mischief has a well-deserved reputation for staging plays and shows that go deliberately and disastrously wrong. Why do audiences enjoy them so much?
“Well, it’s a reflection of our own lives, isn’t it? The bestmade plans going awry, the embarrassment around it, the humanity of it, and the fortitude to go forward in the midst of it,” Valerie explained.
Is the comedy and humour contained in shows like this one mainly British in character. Or universal?
“Well that’s an interesting question. I am American-born but I’ve been in the UK now for 25 years. I think to say it is essentially British would be to forget about some of the American Vaudeville, and particularly Hollywood films like Abbott and Costello and the Marx Brothers and that stream of American comedy. I can’t speak for other nations, but I can say that probably it’s a universal thing that we like to watch each other screw-up. But I also think your country’s sense of propriety and wanting to put a good show on things is quite British. And particularly Mischief’s take on things,” Valerie answered.
Magic Goes Wrong is a new show co-created with American magicians Penn & Teller. It can’t get better than that I remarked.
“No it can’t. I hope they will make it over here to see the production but, of course, during the pandemic who knows. We have had lovely interactions with them online, good luck messages and things like that. This is different from other Mischief shows, in that you do have a whole layer of magic which, although it goes wrong, is quite amazing and baffling. I must say, while in rehearsals for several weeks watching tricks and not knowing how they were done until the actors involved revealed them, is really marvellous. Ben Hart, our magic supervisor, is an amazing magician himself. He talked to us about the techniques of magic and also about the theory and storytelling.”
Did the actors have to learn to perform the tricks and illusions in the show for themselves?
“Oh yes, and they’re highly skilled. Even now, backstage, the young performers who are not involved in card magic or close-up magic will be coming up to one another and trying a new card trick, or pulling coins from unexpected places. I don’t think any of us came in as magicians, but we will certainly come out with some magic skills,” said Valerie.
It is a wonderfully uplifting show, perfect for taking our minds off the pandemic for a couple of hours, I remarked.
“Yes it is,” said Valerie. “But I wouldn’t want to chat about it without also crediting and acknowledging the fact that the success and fun of the show is not only attributable to what you see on the stage. The crew and the timing of the technical movements and trickery backstage is astonishing. The tricks are big, tightly timed and possibly quite dangerous. There is danger involved, so the actors are relying on a highly skilled crew in all departments to create this show.”
Is it harder to perform a play that goes wrong, rather than one that goes right as it were?
“What I have gained from working with Mischief is there
Backstage, the young performers who are not involved in card magic or close-up magic will be coming up to one another and trying a new card trick, or pulling coins from unexpected places. I don’t think any of us came in as magicians, but we will certainly come out with some magic skills. Valerie Cutko
is a degree of consistency and precision which is required for the humour and the Goes Wrong series of shows to work. You really have to be on your game, and quite sharp; it has to look completely spontaneous. It has to be carefully learnt and keenly executed. It looks anarchic but it’s actually highly skilled,” Valerie stressed.
Valerie has a most impressive CV. Her theatre credits include the role of Raffaela in the Broadway production of Grand Hotel and, in the West End, Fraulein Kost in Cabaret and Madame Egorova in The Beautiful and Damned. She also played the Queen of Transylvania in My Fair Lady at the National Theatre, Theatre Royal Drury Lane and for the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall. In the Phantom of the Opera - and the 2020 Greek premiere in Athens
- she played Madame Giry. Valerie also played Ninotchka in Silk Stockings, as well as Marlene Dietrich in Piaf, Emma Goldman in Ragtime, Mrs Mullin in Carousel and Dorothy Stackpoole in Alan Bennett’s play People. Her film credits include The Phantom of the Opera and Les Miserables. On television, she appered in The Robinsons and Material Girl and the Sound of Music Live.
“I have also made forays into intimate cabaret,” the most engaging actress added.
“It needn’t be a small room, but one where you are relating musically and with a chat to an audience. It is really scary. But when you think of the great people who have done it like Judy Garland it is quite thrilling.”
“You know, I’ve done such interesting things in my life but nothing like Magic Goes Wrong. In this business, you never know what’s going to come up.”
Founded in 2007 by Henry Shields, Henry Lewis and Jonathan Sayer, Mischief is a British theatre company specialising in comedy. It is best known for The Play That Goes Wrong and the TV series The Goes Wrong Show. Mischief’s other West End successes include Peter Pan Goes Wrong, The Comedy About A Bank Robbery, Groan Ups and Mischief Movie Night.
Over five decades, magicians Penn & Teller have been ‘sawing the magic rulebook in half’. Their shows combine bamboozling illusions with dark comedy, their magic often seeming to go horribly wrong. They became notorious for repeatedly revealing to the audience exactly how their tricks are done, which has prevented them from being members of the Magic Circle.
Magic Goes Wrong is playing the Theatre Royal Bath from November 9 to 21. Tickets can be booked on 01225 448844 or online at www.theatreroyal.org.uk