The Play That Goes Wrong: Finally kicked off the West End!

Fun Facts: The Play That Goes Wrong won the 2015 Olivier & WhatsOnStage Awards for Best New Comedy. *The committees are still trying to work out the glitch in their systems.

Target Audience: Monty Python and Mr. Bean fans will love this production. Also, if you were unable to see A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder or Noises Off this is a great option B. Just kidding! It is right up there with those two hilarious productions with a British touch.

Best Bit: The end! There is a grand finale where it is evident that every actor has given their all. They are marvelously disheveled and their roaring standing ovation was very well deserved!

Morning After Effect: I feel awfully sorry for the parents and siblings of these actors, who have no doubt endured years of pranks and gags; however, I would love to befriend these lunatics! These have to be the funniest people on Broadway at the moment.

Verdict: To be so awfully bad, you have to be incredible good! What an astonishing group of thespians! Players, in every sense of the word! Bravo!

The Lyceum Theatre may burn down! Built in 1903 by Daniel Frohman, the impressive Lyceum Theatre has a stately apartment above where he had a peephole to see the actors onstage. If Frohman's wife Margaret Illington was overacting he would wave his handkerchief for her as a signal to tone it down. The apartment now houses the Shubert Archive and the peephole is still intact, Frohman is long gone but perhaps the cast of The Murder at Haversham Manor could have done with his signal, and a few more rehearsals!

The Murder at Haversham Manor is, of course, the imaginary play that goes wrong at the Lyceum. The performances are horrendous - all intended of course for this play-within-a-play - and Dave Hearn (playing Cecil Haversham) is by far the worst (aka the best), applauding along with the audience at his fellow actors, gazing out for constant affirmation and using gestures so large he may slip a disk! Equally as amusingly frightful is Jonathan Sayer (Perkins) - his blatant mispronunciation of words makes you wonder if the man can even read! Luckily the script, written by these two and Henry Shields (who is also on stage as the Inspector) is easy to follow as actor Greg Tannahill (Charles Haversham) keeps missing his cue and appearing on stage - despite being dead!

The pandemonium far exceeds the stage with the props department (Nancy Zamit as Annie) doing a dismal task and ruining their production rather than running it! Doors get stuck, picture frames fall off the wall and the set collapses in a heap! A five-year-old could have done a better job than the sound and lighting technician (Rob Falconer as Trevor), who even appears on stage at one point! Despite the belief that 'the show must go on' The Murder at Haversham Manor is a danger to all involved, including the audience who laughed hysterically from beginning to end!

The name of the producing theatre company says it all, Mischief Theatre. With nothing short of a miracle, The Murder at Haversham Manor has been transferred from the West End to Broadway though thankfully it is merely a guise for the brilliant The Play That Goes Wrong! If you enjoyed Monty Python and Mr. Bean then these frantic Brits will have you in stitches as you witness this chaotic production of mishaps and mayhem. These actors are all terrific at being terrible, with several of them having trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Lewis, Shields and Sayer are the genius creators behind this production and I guess living true to the belief 'If you can't book work make work' - they play these amateurish community theatre actors splendidly!

It takes A LOT to stage a successful production, it takes even more to stage one that is purposefully catastrophic! Director Mark Bell was a part of the original West End Production and must be a sucker for punishment as he has worked with many of these overly animated actors before on The Comedy About a Bank Robbery (West End).

Nigel Hook's scenic design deserves mention as one of the most skillfully executed destructions to go down on Broadway. The set is a character in itself, a drunk, wayward character, unpredictable and nerve-wracking! Hook's set managed to keep the audience on the edge of their seats and unhinged as we anticipated further disaster and yet we were surprised every time (there were several screeches in the audience!).

This is a defiantly a show worth seeing, a modern-day soap opera that will make you feel better about your own life and remind you that things could be WAY worse. It is brilliantly BAD, and if London Bridge ever does fall down, the Mischief Theatre Company would be my first suspect!

CAUTION: Anyone with a weak bladder, should not consume any liquids at least three days prior to showtime. The laughter will get you.

Reviewed by Nicola Quinn

April 9th 2017
Lyceum Theatre, New York City
Find me on Twitter: @newyorktheatre

View our show pages for more information about The Play That Goes Wrong, Lyceum Theater.