The Play That Goes Wrong (West End) London Reviews and Tickets

"This theatrical spoof is all punchline and no set-up. The to-the-point title sets out a conceit of non-stop catastrophe that it stages with undeniable skill and devotion. Yet, without more concern for plausibility, it soon goes from amusing to wearying with surprising speed...Scene by scene, Mark Bell’s production is full of good ideas, staged well...Yet, for all the on-stage energy, for all the good wheezes in the script...it has a fatal lack of tension."
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"We might have seen it all a number of times before, but doors that won’t open, missed cues and messed-up lines are somehow never not funny...It’s not sophisticated and it’s certainly over-extended; the show’s one-act Fringe origins aren’t hard to spot. Yet, along with the rest of the enthusiastic audience, I laughed continually. Director Mark Bell also offers some ingenious, not to mention precision-drilled, physical comedy. You have to be meticulous to make things look this chaotic."
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"With this amiably ridiculous show, Mischief Theatre joins a venerable tradition of deliberately dreadful drama...It’s not new then, but it is often very funny. Partly it’s just that slapstick, done well, can reduce even the gravest souls to tears and there are some perfectly timed pratfalls here...This is largely a joyous show. The cast’s physical skill is delightful and the production, directed by Mark Bell, builds to a delirious climax."
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"The show is an anthology of Coarse Theatre and practical disaster...There's no unravelling of character crisis within the assumed roles, and no sense of a play-within-a-play breaking its bounds. This is undiluted, unapologetic sketch theatre, very well done in its way, slightly old-fashioned in thinking itself funnier than it really is, but surprisingly clever in making what is essentially one idea stretch across two hours."
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"The formula is apparently inexhaustible: we like nothing better than gaffs, slips of the tongue, and collapsing scenery...Doors get jammed, a sofa collapses, actors get concussed routinely...Everything you could imagine going wrong – and much you couldn’t – does. The clock strikes 14. There is a dog lead with no dog attached. White spirit is routinely poured out – and spat out – in lieu of whisky (they have no shame in repeating jokes)."
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"I found it hard to laugh spontaneously at the somewhat less-than-spontaneous disasters on offer here. Still, there appears to be such an appetite these days for plays about plays that are staged by hopeless theatrical groups...I have seldom, if ever, heard louder or more sustained laughter in a theatre. I will admit that I was charmed, too, by the youthful cast of unknowns...All in all, it’s a great-looking, brilliantly performed piece."
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"It’s hardly an original idea...but seldom has a theatrical evening been so utterly and entirely sustained by it...The finer plot points of this play need not detain us; they certainly don’t seem to have been retained by its players, who also inevitably struggle to remember their lines...But it is the outrageous, sometimes courageous inventiveness of the physical comedy that’s even more impressive...I laughed a lot at this gloriously preposterous and utterly silly evening."
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"The show sits in a fine tradition of British slapstick, and of plays about theatrical blunders... But the trouble is that anyone who has seen, and loved, ‘Noises Off,’ is likely to find the comparison unfavourable: Frayn’s play simply does all the same things, and does them better. Still, there are laughs to be had here, and the production is a technical triumph: ensuring that props and sets collapse on cue, without actually injuring anyone, is a genuine feat of stage management."
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