Date premiered 2012 (2012) Genre Comedy | Original language English First performance 2012 | |
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Written by Henry LewisJonathan SayerHenry Sheilds Place premiered The Old Red Lion, Islington Characters Sandra, Max, Dennis, Annie, Trevor, Chris, Jonathan, Robert Playwrights Henry Shields, Jonathan Sayer, Henry Lewis Similar The Comedy About a B, Peter Pan Goes Wrong, The Curious Incident, Noises Off, The Mousetrap | ||
The play that goes wrong disaster comedy the lonely butler
The Play That Goes Wrong is a play by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, and Henry Shields. They are all part of the Mischief Theatre Company.
Contents
- The play that goes wrong disaster comedy the lonely butler
- Plot
- London Old Red Lion Theatre 2012 and West End 2013
- UK Tour 2017
- Broadway 2017
- Australian Tour 2017
- Reception
- International
- References
It won Best New Comedy at the 2015 Laurence Olivier Awards.
Mischief Theatre Company have also written Peter Pan Goes Wrong which opened at London's Apollo Theatre in December 2015 and starred the original cast from The Play That Goes Wrong.
Plot
Before the play starts the audience see the backstage staff doing last-minute adjustments to the set, including trying to mend a broken mantlepiece, and to find a dog that has run off.
The fictitious Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society, fresh from such hits as The Lion and The Wardrobe, Cat, and James and the Peach or James, Where's your Peach?, has received a substantial bequest and is putting on a performance of The Murder at Haversham Manor – a 1920s murder mystery play, similar to The Mousetrap, which has the right number of parts for the members. During the production a plethora of disasters befall the cast including: doors sticking; props on the walls falling down; floors collapsing. Cast members are seen misplacing props; forgetting lines (in one scene an actor repeating an earlier line results in the same dialogue being repeated, ever more frenetically, several times); missing cues; having to drink white spirit instead of whisky; mispronouncing words; stepping on fingers; being hidden in a grandfather clock; and being manhandled off stage with one cast member being knocked unconscious and her replacement (and the group technician) refusing to yield when she returns. The climax is a tribute to a scene in Buster Keaton's film Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928), when virtually the whole of the remaining set collapses.
London (Old Red Lion Theatre 2012 and West End 2013)
The play premiered at the Old Red Lion Theatre in London in 2012, moved to Trafalgar Studios in 2013, and opened to the Duchess Theatre in the West End on 14 September 2014, where it will remain until at least September 2017.
UK Tour (2017)
The play began a UK tour, starting at the Theatre Royal in Bath, Going to Wolverhampton from January 2017.
Broadway (2017)
On 14 November 2016 it was announced that the play will transfer to Broadway, opening on 3 April 2017 (with previews beginning 9 March 2017) at the Lyceum Theatre. The production will feature the original London cast, and American film director J. J. Abrams will make his debut as a theatrical producer.
Australian Tour (2017)
A touring production will begin in Australia at the Comedy Theatre in Melbourne from February 2017, before heading to Adelaide, Sydney, Canberra, Brisbane and Perth.
Reception
The Play That Goes Wrong received positive reviews. Quentin Letts of the Daily Mail gave it five stars out of five, saying "As it all goes awry it becomes hard not to gas yourself with laughter. At one point I feared I was going to hyperventilate." Tim Walker of The Telegraph gave it four out of five stars and called it "a great-looking, brilliantly performed piece".
International
The Play That Goes Wrong has been translated and licensed for productions in over 20 other countries, namely China, Hungary, Poland, Spain, Greece, Israel, Scandinavia, France, Italy, Brazil, Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands, Argentina, Uruguay, Turkey, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore, Philippines and South Africa.