The Play That Goes Wrong

‘The show must go on.’

(A nineteenth century show business phrase)

When Laurence Olivier first stepped onstage as a professional actor, he botched his entrance by tripping over the door frame and falling into the footlights. Things can go wrong for even the greatest actor. They can miss their mark, forget their cue, lose their prop. Every person, however revered, can suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune. It can happen because actors – despite their claims – are fallible. They are not divine beings, omniscient Gods, able to circumvent embarrassment and failure. They are shit in a bowl, fart in your pants, human beings. The fact they make mistakes doesn’t make them lesser actors; the fact they can find a way out of them is what makes them great.

Yeah, but you stacked it mate.

I talk about this because last night we went to see The Play That Goes Wrong. The play is a sleeper hit. First performed in The Old Red Lion in Islington, the show benefited from word-of-mouth reviews. From there, it enjoyed huge success in Edinburgh before transferring to London. Over the last four years it’s been packing them out on the West End, earning an Olivier Prize for Best New Comedy. The premise of the play is indebted to Michael Frayn’s Noises Off, a 1982 production that centred on the backstage rivalries of a failing theatre piece. The Play That Goes Wrong is purely centred on what happens onstage and the chaos that ensues when you pair incompetent stage crew with risible actors.

This is the Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society’s production of Murder at Haversham Hall. Director Chris Bean introduces the performance apologising for the box office mix up that has led us here. He hopes we’re not too upset that our Hamilton tickets haven’t materialised, causing us to watch his play instead. Bean is in good spirits; he believes we’re in for a treat. Previous productions have not gone well. Technical challenges hampered James and the Giant Peach (a giant one couldn’t be sourced; the normal one lost. The end result: a work titled James). But this one would be different. They had the costume, the stage, the cast and most importantly, the rights. (Legal wranglings in the past left them without a plural, consequently their musical Cat did not generate the sales they hoped.)

The acting is as stiff as a corpse.

The play begins with Charles Haversham laid out on a sofa. His friend Thomas Colleymore and butler Perkins try to revive him- but he’s dead. Or at least he should be. Acting is a craft. It takes years of training and experience to convey a life not lived. Facial expression, tone of voice, timing, pacing, body language and movement. These are the constituents of acting. However, being a corpse demands none of these things. It is easy. Children do it in primary school. Dead lions on the mat is all the research you need for playing dead. All you have to do is lie there and think of interval – when you can then get up and stretch your legs. The trouble with Charles is he reacts to his company’s mistakes. When they sit on him, he recoils. When they drop something, he hides it. When the stretcher breaks, he wriggles off-stage - this to him is 'covering.'

It’s not just playing dead these characters can’t do: they can't perform for their life. When the body is removed and the inspector is called, havoc soon ensues. Props are misplaced, so instead of the inspector using his pen and notepad to make notes, he must use keys and a vase. As for the performers, they can barely speak let alone act. The actor who plays Perkins enunciates in a style akin to Matt Berry’s Steven Toast, delivering the word ‘morose’ in a way a head injury might. In one hilarious moment, an actor comes in too early, meaning they pre-empt their partner’s line – it’s the Two Ronnies ‘Mastermind’ sketch put to murder mystery dialogue. 

If it isn’t enough the actors have to deal with each other’s efforts, they also have to contend with the stage. Before the production began we saw Trevor, the Sound and Lighting Operator, leave his sound booth to attend to a few things on stage. One of which is a loose floorboard; the other a mantelpiece that won’t stay up. Of course, problems with these feature later. More than that though, the scene walls are shakier than a Crossroads set, and the front door, which connects performer to stage, just won’t open. Everything about this production is doomed to fail: from the corpse that won’t stay down, to the stage that won’t stay up, the play is an unmitigated disaster. So what do the actors do? Break the fourth wall and laugh at their mistakes? End the play early and preserve some dignity? Of course not. They soldier on. They cover each other’s mistakes with more mistakes, creating a house of mistakes, which will of course topple, allowing the process to begin all over again.

At the end of the piece, there’s echoes of Buster Keaton, Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge and Only Fools and Horses. With all these disparate influences, it’s no wonder that the play has been successful. It really is one for all the family. A teenager will enjoy the pratfalls, a millennial will appreciate the satire, a parent will recognise classic sitcom and grandpa will enjoy all the carry on.

The show must go on. 

This show surely will for years yet.

The Play That Goes Wrong is on in the Duchess Theatre