The Play the Goes Wrong
Duchess Theatre, London
0330 333 4810
Those of us who have ever been involved in amateur dramatics will be familiar with having to work within the limitations of budget, cast, scenery, props, costumes, special effects and many other aspects that create as professional a production as possible.
The Play That Goes Wrong reveals the hilarious consequences of weaknesses in every one of these areas.
A play within a play from start to finish, the audience is first treated to a behind-the-scenes view of preparations for the opening night of Cornley Polytechnic’s production of Murder at Havisham Manor.
The apparently minor issues of a missing dog and a wobbly mantlepiece rapidly escalate to the point where everything that could go wrong does.
The cast do a sterling job of covering up for missing props, forgotten lines, hiccups with the scenery and much, much more.
As farce gives way to disaster the play limps towards its conclusion where, among the remnants of the staging, the murderer is revealed.
The on-stage characters are brilliant from start to finish.
All the characters are present: The dapper young heir to a fortune, the attractive socialite, the methodical inspector, the wry butler.
Each one with a motive to commit the murder and each one battling to stay afloat as the play slowly sinks.
However it is the sound and lighting technician Trevor Watson (Tomisin Ajani) who steals the show, from eating crisps during a moment of silence on stage to ‘accidentally’ playing his favourite Duran Duran CD through the sound system.
Doesn’t sound too funny? You had to be there. So go there.
An evening of jaw-aching, side-splitting laughter is guaranteed.
JUDITH CREIGHTON
