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The Play That Goes Wrong
9th November 2021 - 13th November 2021
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Kenny Wax Ltd & Stage Presence Ltd present A Mischief Production
The Play That Goes Wrong
RETURNING FOR YET ANOTHER CALAMITOUS RUN!
We can’t believe it either!
Mischief’s multi award-winning international smash hit comedy The Play That Goes Wrong is returning to Malvern, following previous sell-out successes!
The Cornley Drama Society are putting on a 1920s murder mystery, but as the title suggests, everything that can go wrong… does! As the accident prone thesps battle on against all the odds to reach their final curtain call, hilarious results ensue!
Hailed “a gut-busting hit” by the New York Times, The Play That Goes Wrong, now in its seventh year in the West End, has won a host of celebrity endorsements from the likes of Joanna Lumley “We laughed until the tears ran down our faces, it has to be seen” to Ant & Dec “The funniest show we’ve seen! If you can get a ticket, go!”
Don’t miss this brilliantly funny comedy that’s guaranteed to leave you aching with laughter!
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Event Reviews
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Sheila
What an amazing performance the cast were all superb - didn’t stop laughing the whole way through. I would say one of the best trips to the theatre I have ever had - very well dive everyone involved !
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Ken
Rip roaring funny from start to finish. Very difficult to act badly in a good way !!!
Goodness me, it's great to be at the theatre again.
Well done to everyone, theatre staff and actors ?
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Bryan
This group produce some of the best stage work I’ve seen in many years. We saw the production a few years ago but couldn’t resist the temptation to see it again. It is without doubt the most wonderfully funny play and having been involved in productions in my younger days, I can only imagine the effort needed to make this a success. From those on stage to the set designers, lighting and backstage teams, this is one you will not want to miss
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Pat
Laughed until we cried. Thinking we knew what to expect after avidly following the TV shows, our expectations were quickly surpassed. The sheer speed at which the lines were delivered was incredible, but almost erroneous in context as the mishaps were fast and furious in their arrivals. Sheer brilliance brought to us by an astonishingly talented team. Congratulations to all . We’re now looking forward to ‘Groan Ups’ .
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Peter (The View From The Stalls)
It's amateur week at Malvern Theatres with the Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society presenting "Murder at Haversham Manor". Or rather, this is Mischief Theatre up to their tricks again in "The Play that Goes Wrong", back for its third outing on stage here and the original of a number of "Goes Wrong" plays.
Since they were last in Malvern, the company has had two successful series of their TV equivalent, The Goes Wrong Show, but there is nothing to beat watching a couple of hours of these hapless amateurs and cringing at their attempts to perform this murder mystery. Here, anything that can go wrong will go wrong and a lot more besides. And it is something of a miracle than no-one actually does get hurt as scenery collapses, doors slam into faces and rapid exits are made through the window. It all works brilliantly because of the attention to detail in making everything go wrong faultlessly on cue which is truly no mean feat when so much is going on and at a storming pace too.
The level of detail and imagination in the script extends to the ludicrous sight of the gardener walking around with his dog on a chain even though the dog has actually gone awol, the drinking of white spirit instead of whisky not just the once but also in a marathon session of the script repeatedly going round in circles and the inclusion of rank over-acting amateur Max Bennett (brilliantly played by Tom Babbage) whose only reason for even being on the stage is because the legacy of a relative is paying for the show....
A couple of changes from the previous show, presumably due to Covid restrictions - no handshake from the "director" as you enter the auditorium and the lack of a member of the audience on stage holding up the shelving… Still, we should be grateful that the show is even going ahead and the cast are obviously glad of that too.
It is pretty rare to be able to enjoy a play which invokes almost continuous laughter throughout and in fact for longer than that as the play starts well before curtain up as the backstage crew set about looking for Winston, the lost dog, and there is also the issue of a missing CD... And at one point, one audience member's response completely threw Robert (Leonard Cook) showing that even the best laid plans can still be disrupted.
You will definitely leave the theatre with a few thoughts: how good it is to be back enjoying live shows, how truly funny this show is and how expertly the actors (and backstage crew) make everything go "wrong". Oh, and you will be humming a Duran Duran song as you leave...
It is also well worth getting the programme as it too gently pokes fun at the amateur group...
The company will return to Malvern on January 31st with a new show called "Groan Ups" where they will be playing an unruly classroom of six year olds on their journey through anarchic high school teenagers to the challenges of adulthood - the mind boggles! but you somehow instictively know it will be enormous fun!
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Richard Edmonds
With the news encompassing most things, from incompetent Glasgow committees taking global warming concerns nowhere, to governmental sleaze reaching greater heights since any government in modern times, you may feel in need of a touch of laughter to offset the general gloom.
Go no further than Malvern Theatres where this outstanding production of the old favourite, The Play That Goes Wrong is drawing the town with capacity audiences nightly. For sheer hilarity this is the one, and as the production we see collapses into uncontrollable mayhem I guarantee your sides will ache with laughter as you stagger out in the interval in search of the ice cream queue.
The general premise is that we are seeing an inept, disfunctional drama group, struggling valiantly to stage a tedious murder mystery, where most things fall apart including the set.
An address by the director before curtain up set the tone for what followed. Apparently this drama group had a history of failures, including a past production of James and the Giant Peach, where the over-ripe peach went distinctly "off" and thus gave off a pong all its own. But here, as pictures fell off the walls, and stage windows and drapes collapsed on a regular basis, who worried about James and his outsize peach?
I have seen (and sometimes been part of) other disasters. I remember a local production of that time-honoured musical "The Desert Song" where the hero's dental plate became dislodged during the song "Blue Heaven and you and I", but that was nothing compared to what happened during his rendering of the famous "Riff" song. The audience noted a sudden pinging sound when the song was at its height. Nobody thought much about it, and then suddenly the curtain mechanism broke, down came the curtains, and the leading man disappeared up-stage wrapped in heavy red velvet, with centuries old moths, dead flies and dust that had lain undisturbed from the time the theatre was first built.
Here, part of a mezzanine floor goes into collapse mode as a demented character accidentally bashes his head against the mezzanine's supporting post. The set design at this hilarious moment was super not to mention unique. Amazingly enough, the dialogue never stopped, shrieks and cries of distress filled the stage as characters hit the deck following a knock-out slammer from a casually opened door.
And so it continued all night yet still you heard every word from these wonderful actors who deserve to be named. They were Damien James, Katie Hitchcock, Edi De Melo, Aisha Numah, Tom Babbage, April Hughes, Edward Howells, Leonard Cook,Sean Carey, Tom Bulpett Laura Kirman, and Gabriel Paul.
This superb evening was brought into Malvern Theatres by its Director Nic Lloyd, a consummate theatre man, who has done so much consistently to bring fine theatre of all kinds to Malvern during these plague years, that I have no hesitation in recommending him for a knighthood, so many of which are given away these days to much less deserving individuals from a croney-ridden government.
And as a last word, be sure to take your inhaler--if you have one you'll need it, I needed mine as I wheezed out at the end. -
Steve, Magda, Jo & Morgan
Classic mansion murder mystery given the hilarious gut busting 'goes wrong' treatment. Great bunch of actors and the set was also one of the stars.
Go see. -
Allan
The funniest stage play I have ever seen. Brilliantly executed. Would love to see it again and again. I don't suppose a performance has been recorded on video and available on a DVD? This has been an experience that will live long in the memory.
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Lyndsey
First trip to the theatre since lockdown, so pleased we chose this play. I've not laughed so much in a long time, 3 generations could all enjoy some good old fashioned silly humour. It was fantastic from start to finish, absolutely loved it.
