I’ve never seen such chaos - it was brilliant!
It’s not uncommon to wish a cast good luck before a performance by telling them to ‘break a leg’. But in this instance, it was an absolute miracle that nobody did.
I fancied a nice day out in Bath with my stepdaughter - a spot of lunch, a spot of shopping, and a play at the Theatre Royal Bath. Like many people, I’ve hardly set foot in the theatre or cinema following the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent restrictions, so I was pretty excited.
However, the play we chose to watch ended up being the most chaotic and crazy few hours in the theatre I’ve ever experienced. And it was brilliant.
I’ll admit, I’d not really heard of The Play That Goes Wrong before, but when I informed my stepdaughter we were going to watch it, she was delighted. Turns out, it’s pretty wellknown.
A bit of research left me a little embarrassed that I’d not heard of the play before - it’s known for being downright hilarious. But I was also sceptical. How funny can a play possibly be?
Well, let’s just say the performance gave a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘the show must go on’. I felt an
odd mix of elation and anxiety throughout the whole thing, as everything in the performance of ‘Murder at Haversham Manor’ does indeed go wrong.
The first scene set the tone nicely for the rest of the performance - a group of panicked stage crew members, desperately trying to place the set together before the start of the show.
When Trevor, the lighting and sound operator (played by Gabriel Paul) arrived on the stage and asked if anyone had seen his Duran Duran CD, I was bemused.
He then proceeded to give a sterling performance as an utterly useless crew member, relentlessly making mistakes both off and on stage.
One particularly funny scene is when he is reluctantly drafted in to act a female part on stage when a cast member is knocked unconscious.
As the cast members were falling through ceilings, getting knocked out by slamming doors, being punched in the face and being forced to drink white spirit and pretend it was whisky, I couldn’t help but lose myself in the chaos of it all.
Steven Rostance was brilliant in his role as Jonathan (who in the play was playing Charles Haversham). His one job was to play dead for the entirety of the play but failed miserably in almost every scene.
The desperation in Chris Bean’s (played by Colin Burnicle) voice was
unmistakable as he not only tried to direct the play but also star in it as Inspector Carter.
As the set fell apart around him, cast members started to fight and everyone forgot their lines, you couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for him. We all felt it when he couldn’t find the hidden ledger.
Shy and quiet stage manager Annie Twilloil (played by the brilliant Beth Lilly) surprised the whole theatre when she was drafted in to take over as Florence Colleymoore, and ended up enjoying the performance so much she just wouldn’t exit the stage.
Perhaps my favourite performance of the show came from Edi De Melo, who played Max Bennett. Max had the task of playing two characters in the play - Cecil Haversham and the gardener for the Haversham estate.
During his role as Cecil, Max couldn’t quite hide his joy at being on stage and proceeded to grin manically at the audience every time they laughed or clapped.
Other sterling performances came from Aisha Numah who played Sandra, who was playing Florence Colleymoore (can you keep up?), Damien James who played Dennis, who was playing the butler Perkins, and Kazeem Tosin Amore who played Robert (who was playing Thomas Colleymoore).
The whole cast was fantastic. To authentically act out so many mistakes and mishaps, perfectly timed and on cue, while maintaining their calm and composure was nothing short of brilliant.
Many of the funniest moments came when the actors on stage fell silent as they desperately tried to figure out how to carry on through the next mishap. It was a total riot from start to finish, and the whole audience was belly-laughing throughout.
It was a show of pure chaos but also pure genius. As it turned out, knowing as little as possible about the show was probably the best way to watch it.
So no more spoilers, get yourself a ticket and prepare yourself for the mayhem.