The Play That Goes Wrong is a play by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, and Henry Shields of Mischief Theatre Company. The story follows a performance of a murder mystery, produced by a university drama society, during which the ill-fated theatre company encounters numerous mishaps.
The original production has been running since 2012 in London, where it won Best New Comedy at the 2015 Laurence Olivier Awards. Since 2014, the play has undertaken five tours of the UK, and a Broadway production ran from 2017–2019 and then continued off-Broadway.
Contents
Plot
The Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society, after being forced by a lack of personnel to stage scaled-down productions such as Two Sisters, The Lion and The Wardrobe, Cat, and James and the 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 its members. The cast is headed by Chris Bean, who plays Inspector Carter and serves as the show's director, set designer, costume designer, props maker, box office manager, press and PR person, voice and dialect coach, and fight choreographer.
Before the play starts the backstage staff makes last-minute adjustments to the set, including trying to mend a broken mantelpiece and find a dog that has run off.
During the performance, a plethora of disasters befalls the actors, including doors sticking or failing to stay closed, loose floorboards, set pieces falling, and platforms collapsing. Cast members fall down, are struck by set pieces, misplace and break props, forget lines, miss cues, break character, drink white spirit instead of Scotch whisky, mispronounce words, step on fingers, are hidden in a grandfather clock, and are manhandled off stage. One cast member is knocked unconscious, and her replacement (the group's technician reading the lines from a script) refuses to yield when the actress returns. An actor repeats an earlier line of dialogue, cuing the other actors to repeat the whole dialogue sequence, ever more frenetically, several times. During intermission, a few of the actors will interact directly with patrons in the lobby as Bean desperately tries to corral them back into the dressing room. In the climax, virtually the whole of the remaining set collapses.
Productions
London (2012–present)
The play premiered at the Old Red Lion Theatre in London in 2012, and moved to Trafalgar Studios in 2013. The play then opened at the Duchess Theatre in the West End on 14 September 2014, where it remains as the longest-running play since the theatre opened in 1929. The direction is by Mark Bell. The cast included Henry Shields as Chris, Dave Hearn as Max, Rob Falconer as Trevor, Henry Lewis as Robert, Charlie Russell as Sandra, Jonathan Sayer as Dennis, Greg Tannahill as Jonathan, and Nancy Zamit as Annie. Sets are designed by Nigel Hook and built by Splinter Scenery. Costumes are designed by Roberto Surace.
On 9 September 2026, the twelfth anniversary of the West End opening, Mischief announced that the Duchess Theatre booking had been extended to 31 January 2028, taking the production into the company's own twentieth anniversary year.
UK tours (2014–present)
The play's first UK tour began in January 2014 (prior to transferring to the Duchess Theatre in the West End) at the Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury featuring the original cast, visiting 17 venues and ending in Darlington in July.
It began a UK tour from January 2017, starting at the Theatre Royal in Bath, ending at the Cambridge Arts Theatre in August.
A UK tour occurred in 2018, starting at Royal and Derngate, Northampton.
A UK tour commenced on 13 July 2021 at the Marlowe Theatre Canterbury, and concluded at the Waterside Theatre Aylesbury on 27 November 2021.
The UK tour began at the Theatre Royal in Bath in April 2022. The original West End cast returned to this touring production for two weeks in Manchester and Newcastle.
Broadway (2017–2019)
The play opened on Broadway on 2 April 2017, after previews that began on 9 March 2017, at the Lyceum Theatre. The production, also directed by Bell, featured the original London cast, and film director J. J. Abrams made his debut as a theatrical producer. The production closed on 6 January 2019, after 745 regular performances and 27 previews.
Australian tour (2017)
A touring production began in Australia at the Comedy Theatre in Melbourne from February 2017, before heading to Adelaide, Sydney, Canberra, the Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC) in Brisbane, and His Majesty's Theatre in Perth.
US tour (2018)
The play toured North America, starting in September 2018 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The original tour cast included Brandon J. Ellis as Trevor, Evan Alexander Smith as Chris, Yaegel T. Welch as Jonathan, Peyton Crim as Robert, Scott Cote as Dennis, Jamie Ann Romero as Sandra, Ned Noyes as Max, and Angela Grovey as Annie.
Another US tour launched in the fall of 2019 and continued until the COVID-19 pandemic caused it to shut down ahead of schedule. Cast members included Chris Lanceley as Chris, Chris French as Jonathan, Michael Thatcher as Robert, Jacqueline Jarrold as Sandra, Todd Buonopone as Dennis, and Adam Petherbridge as Max. Bianca Horn initially played Annie before returning to the Off-Broadway company. She was replaced by Ashley D. Kelley. Jason Bowen also initially played Trevor before swapping places with Off-Broadway's Ryan Vincent Anderson.
The national tour went out again in 2023 with a stop at Washington, D.C.'s Kennedy Center.
Off-Broadway (2019 – present)
The Broadway production transferred off-Broadway to New World Stages on 11 February 2019. It is directed by Matt DiCarlo. On 12 March 2020, production was suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic until it reopened on 15 October 2021. It continues running in 2026.
Chicago (2021–2022)
A production opened at Chicago's Broadway Playhouse in December 2021 and closed on 21 May 2022.
Australia (2025)
An Australian tour commenced in June 2025.
Roles and principal casts
Characters
Chris Bean, who plays Inspector Carter
Jonathan Harris, who plays Charles Haversham
Robert Grove, who plays Thomas Colleymoore
Dennis Tyde, who plays Perkins
Sandra Wilkinson, who plays Florence Colleymoore
Max Bennett, who plays both Cecil Haversham and Arthur the Gardener
Trevor Watson, the lighting and sound operator
Annie Twilloil, the stage manager
Related TV specials
The play's creators later collaborated on two television specials, an adaptation of Peter Pan Goes Wrong and a sequel titled A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong, aired on BBC One in December 2016 and 2017.
A TV series, The Goes Wrong Show, followed in 2019. In December 2019, a full series of The Goes Wrong Show was broadcast featuring 6 episodes with the same cast as the other two TV specials. Each episode was said to have received an average of 2.2 million people watching it when broadcast.
Following the success of the first series, the BBC commissioned a second series which premiered its first episode on 27 September 2021.
Awards and nominations
Reception
The Play That Goes Wrong received positive reviews. Tim Walker of The Telegraph gave it four out of five stars, calling it "a great-looking, brilliantly performed piece" and stated that "I have seldom, if ever, heard louder or more sustained laughter in a theatre." Mark Shenton of the London Theatre gave it four out of five stars, stating that though the play would not appeal to everyone, "you cannot fail to admire the ceaseless energy of the cast", and shared that "the real surprise is just how well-sustained the joke is."
Sarah Hemming of the Financial Times gave the play four out of five stars, noting its shared lineage with plays such as Noises Off and stated that "It's not new then, but it is often very funny." Though she found areas in the play that needed improvement ("it would be funnier if it started more subtly, rather than at full tilt.... The company could also make more of offstage dynamics"), she considered the play to be "largely a joyous show."
International
The Play That Goes Wrong has been translated and licensed for productions in over 30 other countries, namely Canada, China, Hungary, Poland, Spain, Greece, Israel, Scandinavia, France, Italy, Iceland, Brazil, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Kosovo, Belgium, The Netherlands, Mexico, Argentina, Uruguay, Colombia, Chile, Turkey, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore, Philippines, Puerto Rico, South Africa, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Taiwan, Portugal (UAU), Croatia, Russia, India (Natak na Natak nu Natak by Sharman Joshi Productions), (Play that goes wrong by Prathmesh Viveki), Cyprus, and the Czech Republic.