Review: The Play That Goes Wrong

 by Lorcan Bonser-Wilton

During the summer holidays, I saw The Play That Goes Wrong on its first stop on a longer UK tour, at the Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury. It was so nice to get back into a theatre (my last visit being in February 2020 to see Hamilton), even on the last day of enforced capacity limits and social distancing (marked by the rather amusing ‘Flatmates’, ranging from theatre characters to Winston Churchill).

To summarise the show, it is a spoof of a murder mystery (performed by an amateur university drama society) where every concievable thing goes wrong. It is said that you need a very good actor to play a very bad actor, and it is true in this case for sure. The show itself was uproariously funny from the rise of the curtain to the climax where (to not spoil too much) the set literally falls around the actors as they race to finish before even more goes wrong.

Before the show, the antics begin. Trevor (the head of the society’s technical crew, portrayed to great uproar by Gabriel Paul) begins some last-minute adjustments and races around the stage in mild panic, looking for a lost gardener’s dog, and a lost Duran-Duran CD needed for the show (he implores the audience to look under their seats for the dog, and to return the CD to the tech box if found). Additionally, he and some of the other ’techies’ try to fix a supposedly broken door and a broken shelf with dodgy tools. After all of this, Chris, the director and star of the show (whose rather egotistical character is captured brilliantly by Tom Bulpett), steps in front of the curtain to introduce the society, their show and their problematic shows of the past (including their hasty redesign of a show, entitled ‘James, Where’s your Peach?’). From the word go, chaos ensues. Blunders are made by both the cast and crew, as a bottle of whiskey is replaced with white spirit, and on multiple occasions, characters are seen drinking, then gagging and spitting the drink all over the stage. The character of Dennis (played by Edward Howells), who plays the butler Perkins within the play, constantly mispronounces words, and a ‘snowstorm’ is clearly a crew member throwing paper from backstage. As the story unfolds, it is revealed that two of the play within a play’s characters (Florence, the murdered man’s widow, and Cecil, his brother, portrayed respectively by April Hughes and Tom Babbage) are having a torrid affair, and what follows is a rather hilarious sequence where they are attempting to kiss, but are constantly interrupted by various other characters, displaying exaggerated motions of shock and surprise that had the audience in stitches. Finally, throughout the show, bits of the set fall down, such as a raised platform, until the structure of the set cannot withstand the failings of the cast and then… I think you can guess what happens!

To focus upon the character named Sandra who plays Florence Colleymore in the society’s play, she is put through many trials and tribulations throughout the disastrous show. Firstly, she is knocked out by a door, and the other actors attempting to move her results in her comatose body being pulled through a window in the set, revealing the backstage crew. When they need to replace Sandra, they bring on the stage manager, Annie (played by Laura Kirman), armed with a script and a lack of acting skill that results in inappropriate reactions to the other characters, and hilarity ensuing in the audience. Towards the end of the play, the original Florence returns, and after another mishap involving a malfunctioning grandfather clock, the two actors vying to play the character begin a loud, comic and violent fight backstage, hitting each other with all manner of props during the chaotic climax. 

Overall, it was an excellent performance by all, and it really does deserve the outstanding reputation it has gained over the years as an impressively silly show.