Christopher Gray enjoys this Mischief Theatre satire on am-dram disasters

The hugely talented young cast of The Play That Goes Wrong, having received rave reviews in the West End and on the Edinburgh Fringe, are out on a tour lasting into late June. The marvel will be, given the physical demands of the piece, if they complete their odyssey without serious injury.

Spectacular collapses of the set (see right) are the principal peril facing Mischief Theatre. One false move, one momentary lapse in concentration, and a disaster beckons — for real.

Pretend disaster is, of course, what this hilarious show is about as Mischief transforms into Cornley Polytechnic Dramatic Society to stage the creaky 1920s mystery The Murder at Haversham Manor. In this ill-managed production, lines are forgotten, cues missed, entries mistimed, props lost and bodies rise from the dead — well, how else to get a ‘corpse’ offstage when a stretcher breaks?

Poking fun at amateur catastrophe is hardly a new idea, dating back at least to Shakespeare and Pyramus and Thisbe. A precise forerunner to Mischief’s work came 30 years ago in David McGillivray and Walter Zerlin Jnr’s The Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswomen’s Guild Dramatic Society Murder Mystery. Still, it is very well done here.

Previously running at just an hour, the play has been nearly doubled in length for the tour by writers (and actors) Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer and Henry Shields.

There are few obvious signs of padding, though, except perhaps the front-of-curtain addresses by ‘director’ Chris (Shields) in which he recalls — is this likely? — earlier Cornley stinkers.

Chris, clearly something of an egotist, has also secured the plum part of Insp Carter who turns up at snow-enveloped Haversham (shades of The Mousetrap) to investigate the murder of owner Charles (Greg Tannahill).

Suspects include both his femme fatale fiancée Florence (Charlie Russell) and his cheesily-grinning younger brother (Dave Hearn) with whom she is having an affair. His best pal Thomas (Henry Lewis) would appear to have a motive, too, and there is something very odd about the word-mangling butler (Jonathan Sayer).

A comic peak is reached when Florence is concussed by a slamming door and her comatose body, legs akimbo, is hauled out of a window. Her replacement is gormless stage manager Annie (Lotti Maddox). Though no better a thesp than lighting man Trevor (Rob Falconer), also pressed into service as an unlikely sex siren, she develops a taste for the work and fights tooth and nail to continue when the real Florence returns. With people crippled with laughter around me in the stalls, this show is dangerous for the audience too. Watch with care...

The Play That Goes Wrong
Oxford Playhouse
Until Saturday
01865 305305, oxfordplayhouse.com