Mischief Comedy and The Play That Goes Wrong have been on my ‘to see’ list for a long time but somehow they had managed to evade me…until last night that is! The Play That Goes Wrong is based on the fact that Cornley Polytechnic is putting on ‘Murder At Haversham Manor.’ Everything that could go wrong with the production does, with misplaced props, doors that won’t open, set that falls apart and injured cast!

The words organised chaos sums up this show perfectly, barely a few minutes go by in the show without something going wrong. The mishaps get bigger as the play progresses and by the time the show is nearing a close we are onto the 3rd performer for one of the roles! Mischief make this kind of chaos look easy however in reality this kind of comedy is incredibly challenging and relies on impeccable timing. The physical comedy was timed so well that it had me exclaiming out loud whenever an injury took place on stage and the scripted comedy was so quick that I was still laughing at a previous joke by the time they had moved onto the next one.

All of the cast were incredibly strong and I really enjoyed the larger than life characters that they portrayed. April Hughes as the overly dramatic Sandra (or Florence within the murder mystery) was a particular joy to watch as she was so different to the rest of the cast, playing up her feminine wiles. I also enjoyed Tom Babbage as Max i.e Cecil and Arthur. He flung himself across the set with such ease that I marvelled at the fact that he did so safely!

The technical team also deserve commendation for this show, the sound effects and gradual decline of the set were all spot on. It may be easy to create a set that falls apart but a set that falls apart on cue within a strict order is feat as awe inspiring as the performances given by the cast. The team work that must have gone into to this between the director, Mark Bell and the set designer, Nigel Hook really paid off.

I normally don’t mention the programme but this one was unlike one I have seen before and contained a programme within a programme for Murder At Haversham Manor, complete with reviews from Cornley Polytechnic’s previous shows and a welcome from the President of the society. It is touches like this that helped immerse the audience in the farce from the moment they walked into the auditorium.

The Play That Goes Wrong is more than just funny, it is laugh out loud and audibly exclaim funny. The show is the pure definition of organised chaos and I was living for it!

The Play That Goes Wrong is touring and to find out where and to book tickets visit their website.

If you like this review you might also like my review of The Rocky Horror Show, Grease and Waitress.