The Play That Goes Wrong

**The Play That Goes Wrong** is a 2012 play by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, and Henry Shields of Mischief Theatre Company. It won Best New Comedy at the 2015 Laurence Olivier Awards. As of April 2023, the play has been running continuously at the Duchess Theatre in London for 8 years, and since 2014, the play has undertaken five UK tours.

## History

### London

*The Play That Goes Wrong* was written by Henry Lewis, Henry Shields and Jonathan Sayer while the trio were living together after drama school. The first production was staged at The Old Red Lion pub theatre in Islington, London. The initial run was from 4th to 31st December 2012. In 2013, the play had another run at the Old Red Lion, from 12th to 30th March. It then ran twice at the Trafalgar Studios, from 30th April to 1st June and from 2nd to 20th July. Later this year, a second act was added to the play ahead of the UK tour in 2014.

After the first UK tour, the production moved into the Duchess Theatre in the West End, beginning previews on 5th September and opening on 14th September 2014. The original cast left the show on 18th August 2015 and were succeeded by a new cast, which contained several members of Mischief Theatre including Harry Kershaw, Niall Ransome and Bryony Corrigan.  The third cast began performances on 29th June 2016. The original cast returned to the show for 2 weeks in February 2017 ahead of their Broadway transfer. The fourth cast joined the show on 10th May 2017.

### UK Tours

The first UK tour of *The Play That Goes Wrong* began on 21st January 2014 at the Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury. The tour visited seventeen venues around the UK before concluding in Darlington on 21st June.

The second UK tour started at Theatre Royal Bath on 10th January 2017 and played at 30 venues in the UK and Ireland before finishing in Canterbury. Most of the cast from this tour then went into the West End production, starting on 28th March 2018.

After closures due to Covid-19, the play reopened at the Duchess Theatre on 9th December 2020, before being forced to close on 16th December due to government guidance. The show reopened on 18th June 2021 with a new cast.

## Summary

For the goes right version see: The Murder At Haversham Manor

Before the play starts the audience see the backstage staff doing last-minute adjustments to the set, including trying to mend a broken mantelpiece and find a dog (Winston) that has run off. The backstage staff will ask audience members to help find him. An audience member will be asked to help fix the set. Trevor makes an announcement, asking the audience to help him find his Duran Duran CD boxset.

The fictitious Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society (Cornley University in the American version), 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.

The script was written by the fictitious Susie H. K. Brideswell. During the performance, a play within a play, a plethora of disasters befall the cast, including doors sticking, props falling from the walls, and floors collapsing. Cast members are seen misplacing props, forgetting lines (in one scene, an actor repeats an earlier line of dialogue and causes the dialogue sequence triggered by that line to be repeated, ever more frenetically, several times), missing cues, breaking character, having to drink white spirit instead of whisky (paint thinner in the U.S. production), mispronouncing words, stepping on fingers, being hidden in a grandfather clock, and being manhandled off stage, with one cast member (Sandra, playing Florence) being knocked unconscious and her replacement (Annie, the group technician) refusing to yield when she returns. Trevor, the play's lighting and sound operator will play music at inappropriate times and miss some of his cues. 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.

## Full Plot

(This is the goes wrong script: For the goes right version see: The Murder At Haversham Manor)

## Casts

### UK Casts

* Original Off-West End
* West End Casts
* UK Tour Casts

## References

1. ↑ https://twitter.com/DaveHearn2/status/1250756001118195712/photo/1
2. ↑ https://www.whatsonstage.com/london-theatre/news/the-play-that-goes-wrong-transfers-to-west-end\_34229.html
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 https://www.whatsonstage.com/london-theatre/news/new-cast-announced-for-play-that-goes-wrong\_38206.html
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 https://www.whatsonstage.com/london-theatre/news/the-play-that-goes-wrong-new-cast-duchess\_40964.html
5. ↑ https://britishtheatre.com/new-london-cast-for-play-that-goes-wrong/
6. ↑ https://www.whatsonstage.com/bath-theatre/news/the-play-that-goes-wrong-set-for-uk-tour\_33126.html
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 https://www.whatsonstage.com/bath-theatre/news/the-play-that-goes-wrong-uk-tour-cast\_42423.html
8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 https://www.whatsonstage.com/london-theatre/news/play-that-goes-wrong-new-cast-extension-west-end\_46078.html
9. ↑ https://twitter.com/playgoeswrong/status/1338558220277862405
10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 https://www.whatsonstage.com/london-theatre/news/west-end-cast-play-that-goes-wrong\_54035.html
11. ↑ https://britishtheatre.com/new-london-cast-for-play-that-goes-wrong/
12. ↑ https://www.whatsonstage.com/london-theatre/news/the-play-that-goes-wrong-2019-west-end-cast\_48445.html