Skip to main content

The Play That Goes Wrong at Royal & Derngate (Royal), Northampton

A Small Mind trod the boards of the Royal last week making his acting debut in front of over five hundred paying customers. Fortunately for them they were not paying to see me, but actually Mischief Theatre's sublime The Play That Goes Wrong.

A Small Mind found himself on stage at the behest of the lovely Nancy Wallinger (Annie), who was having trouble with the set. I used my stunning acting skills, honed over, oh, five seconds, as I was led on the stage, and I goofed it up as much as I could and even improvised with a door. I was most excellent. In my mind.

However, less about my forthcoming Olivier and more about this somewhat excellent comic play. I quite often find it difficult to write reviews without giving the plot away, however with this show, its giving the jokes away that's the problem. The play itself gives the plot away after all, with a clever running joke and the understudy antics.

Anyway suffice to say, The Play That Goes Wrong more than lives up to its name with the most glorious collection of set problems, acting problems and script problems. This is a play of the most stunning timing, be it verbal or very physical jokes. Almost everything you could imagine happens over the plays duration and quite a bit more.

The cast are nothing short of stunning, the lot of them, as they ham it up in the extreme. Overacting, and hysterical at almost every moment.

Henry Shields channels John Cleese in his most extreme, peaking in his "A Ledger!" scene. Greg Tannahill plays the best dead body you are ever likely to see on stage, while Henry Lewis is a plummy voiced perfection and with a most physical prowess, especially with his balcony shenanigans. Jonathan Sayer as Perkins is quite splendiferous (try that one! *checks hand*).

Dave Hearn mugs it up brilliantly and his reaction to the audience is constantly very funny. Finally Charlie Russell as Sandra it delightful and gorgeous (don't she know it *strike a pose*) as Sandra.

A special mention to the "crew", including the aforementioned Nancy Wallinger, as well as Rob Falconer, the play most certainly, most definitely, wouldn't be the same without you. Also Alys Metcalf, I do not have that CD, I had no idea how I knew it was even missing in the first place.

Anyway, without doubt this is the funniest play that I have seen so far and it was so good I had to relive it again the next day. I was told that some had said that it was a Marmite play, but I find it difficult to comprehend how anyone could dislike it.

I have also never seen an audience react quite as one as they do to this play. The shear amount of applause's during the play was amazing and I have never seen a man physically react to laughter so much as I did when the person next to me almost punched the lady in front of him.

I can safely say that I have had the honour to appear on stage during one of the funniest plays ever and you simply must go and see it.

The Play That Goes Wrong may well have left Northampton, however you have ample opportunity to catch it as it continues to tour the UK before returning to the West End.
http://www.mischieftheatre.co.uk/

Popular posts from this blog

Northampton Theatre Preview - September 2016

With the Summer downtime coming to an end for the theatres of Northampton, the curtain is ready to rise again on a new season of shows in the town. Top pick at Royal & Derngate has to be the return of the hit adaptation of Charles Dickens' A Tale Of Two Cities. Adapted by Mike Poulton and directed by the R&D artistic directer James Dacre, this version first seen in 2014 plays for seven nights in the Royal before setting off on a national tour. Dates in Northampton are Saturday 10th to Saturday 17th with matinees on Wednesday, Thursday and the second Saturday. For those wanting to revisit the turbulant times of the 1989 political world, there is a chance to see Jonathan Maitland's touring Dead Sheep. Telling the story of the ramifications of Geoffrey Howe's sacking at the hands of PM Margaret Thatcher and her eventual downfall at the hands of this "dead sheep". It stars Steve Nallon, Paul Bradley and Graham Seed and runs at the Royal & Derngate be...

Review of Rambert Dance in Peaky Blinders - The Redemption of Thomas Shelby at Royal & Derngate (Derngate), Northampton

The Rambert Dance Company is the oldest such company in Britain having first performed in 1926. However, despite this, this was my first encounter with the group in my ten years of theatre-going. Coupled with this, it was also my first encounter with Peaky Blinders , having never seen the show, and only knowing a few vague things about it. My companion for the evening however was very familiar with the show, allowing some background behind the show. It turns out though,  Rambert Dance in Peaky Blinders - The Redemption of Thomas Shelby needs a little more than a good bit of knowledge of the show, as despite this production having incredible style, there struggles to be a cohesive structure to the show and the storytelling. Much more than other dance shows as well. The first act does a whistle-stop tour of the first five seasons and while it is a feast on the eye, and on the ear, it gets extremely confusing at times. The second act is freestyle and drifts away from the stories tol...

Camden Fringe Review: FEET by Emma And Lawrence Wrote A Play at Etcetera Theatre, London

While some issue plays tend to miss the point of providing fun and entertainment as well as making their point on a relevant issue, FEET is certainly not one of them. Written, produced, directed and performed by the two-person team of Emma And Lawrence Wrote A Play, this is clearly a labour of love of the two, full names Emma Brown and Lawrence Smith, it is fun and engaging throughout. It's "issue" is loosely about selling your body for money or art and how far you might be willing to push it. Lucy Winwood (Emma Brown) is your typical young actress, struggling hard to get those money making roles, or roles in general, and in need of money she stumbles upon the world of feet fetishism (as you, of course, would) and slowly from just images of her feet sold online, it becomes feet in jelly and then finally personal meetings with clients for full on feet interaction. The path that FEET takes is that is this denigration of your body in selling your feet actually worse than...