Laughter as the set comes crashing down

Winner of Best New Comedy in the 2015 Laurence Olivier Awards, The Play that Goes Wrong has left the West End to entertain theatres around the UK.

Written by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer and Henry Sheilds, of the Mischief Theatre company, it first took to the stage in 2012 and has experienced huge success since opening.

Now performed in more than 20 other countries, recently opened in Broadway and with a tour of Australia under its belt, it has made its way to HM Theatre in Aberdeen for a week’s run.

Even before the curtain goes up some cast members are let loose in the auditorium looking for Winston the dog. And on stage the confusion continues with the show’s stage managers recruiting a gentleman from the audience to help with a broken fireplace and faulty door while the lighting and sound operator shouts out to the audience for help in finding his Duran Duran CD.

Just before the whodunit commences, society president and leading man Chris (played by Patrick Warner) describes the Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society and recounts some of the society’s previous calamitous performances promising that this one will be an improvement.

It is essentially a play within a play, that goes wrong, spectacularly wrong with hilarious consequences. The Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society, also known as the Mischief Theatre Company, are putting on an amateur production of a 1920s murder mystery at Haversham Manor and endure a deluge of unfortunate events.

With an unrehearsed and accident-prone cast, badly made stage sets and meagre planning, the whole show goes from bad to worse and we are the lucky audience witnessing it.

During the two-hour show the superb script and talented cast have the audience crying with laughter at their disastrous on stage antics.

The actors’ roles must be physically demanding as sets collapse around them, people are being injured and fights break out and we all eagerly wait to see the next disastrous but incredibly funny consequence.

It must be every “am-dram” producer’s nightmare, as lines are fluffed, cues are missed and people who are supposed to be dead are very much alive. The comic timing of the actors is first-class: Edward Judge as Robert and Edward Howells as the butler were a fabulous double act.

Enjoying his moment on stage a bit too much was Max, played by Alastair Kirton who pulled off some hilarious facial expressions.

And last but not least the charming ladies (Meg Mortell and Katie Bernstein) who share the role of Florence in their own unique way.

The end of the show is frantic, scenery is collapsing all around the stage, while the actors all deliver their final lines, chaos ensues and then literally – the lights go out.

The Play that Goes Wrong is completely different to any other show I have ever seen.

The audience laughed from the very start to the finish; this is pure slapstick comedy (reminiscent of Laurel and Hardy) at its best.

Dramatic licence . . . for the cast of The Play That Goes Wrong