By Michelle Rawlins
With comical capers by the bucket load, more silly shenanigans than you can shake a stick at, and hysterical hilarity, Mischief Theatre have come up trumps with a theatrical comedy like no other.
They’re renowned for their non-stop perfectly timed stage mishaps, ridiculous plots and collapsing sets and with this play within a play, director, Mark Bell, has excelled himself.
Even before the show gets started, the audience are introduced to the ‘backstage’ team, who are supposedly putting the final touches to the set for an amateur production of Murder At Haversham Manor. But they’re struggling to ensure props don’t fall off walls, the mantelpiece stays intact and the door handle works. A member of the audience is cajoled into helping out and left juggling tools and given the task of trying to repair a set, which is every Health and Safety’s officer’s worst nightmare.
On top of that, the actors of the spoof theatre company appear to have lost a dog, and technical assistant, Trevor (Gabriel Paul), who goes on to be one of the stars of the show, due to his amusing absent mindedness, is flapping about his missing and much-loved Duran Duran CD.
After this, the small-in-numbers, but huge-in-personality cast of the fictional Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society get underway with their farcical murder mystery, where anything that can go wrong, really does go wrong.
The perfectly executed calamities are what makes this show the masterpiece it has built its reputation on. Set Designer, Nigel Hook, and the stage management team, have ensured there is never a dull moment, as windows falls out, a lift explodes, props are misplaced and in a hilarious climax, a mezzanine floor catastrophically collapses, threatening to send actors flying across the stage.
These highly amusing special effects are accompanied by a cast of stellar and highly physical, acrobatic actors, who are more than adept at ensuing this seamlessly created flow of flaws, are accompanied by slap stick one liners, circus like theatricals and faultless ‘bad’ acting, punctuated with ludicrously cringe worthy, yet perfectly placed puns.
The creative team’s ongoing success at cleverly scripted comedy genius is easily measured by the continual raucous laughter from the audience, adding to the fast tempo, merry atmosphere.
It really is no surprise this innovative theatre company, which premiered their laugh-out-loud show at the Old Red Lion Theatre in London in 2012, have a plethora of awards under their belt. They are masters at creating good old fashioned slapstick comedy.
By the end of this two-hour escapade, you’ll be exhausted from laughing, have tears rolling down your cheeks, and will probably still be giggling away to yourself when you get home.
Without a doubt, you definitely can’t go wrong, with The Play That Goes Wrong.
At The Lyceum Until July 16, then touring
Tickets available here
Photos by Robert Day.