The Play That Goes Wrong review, Duchess Theatre

There are moments in The Play That Goes Wrong when, knowing full well that everything is meant to go wrong, you still gasp out loud as men swing from collapsing gantries, slide perilously to the edge of overhanging platforms, are stood on and squashed, and savaged by an invisible dog. Meanwhile the women on stage are slammed in the face time and again by doors and clocks and bookshelves and finally each other. It's unadulterated, increasingly bizarre, beautifully timed, slapstick.

The Play That Goes Wrong is a play about a play: a production of Murder at Faversham Manor staged by the Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society. The evening starts with the Director, who is also playing Inspector Carter, apologising to the 347 audience members who thought they'd bought tickets for Mamma Mia. He is delighted, he says, to at last stage a play where he has both the right number and the right type of actors. This will be better than Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society's previous productions: Two Sisters, Ugly and the Beast, and the musical, Cat.

My companion for the evening viewed The Play That Goes Wrong as farce - peculiarly English - but the narrative is linear and it is as much Buster Keaton as it is dropped trousers and a confusion of doors. In homage to Keaton the walls collapse on the players leaving them standing in a dusty daze. The eight players are equals on the stage, each with spotlight moments in Mark Bell's pitch-perfect, highly physical, staging. There are hilarious exit scenes featuring dead and unconscious characters. The complex structure of the script, written by Henry Lewis, Henry Shields and Jonathan Sayer, is held safe on Nigel Hook's resilient set which collapses so effortlessly on cue, you know it's top dollar.

In conclusion: If slapstick isn't your cup of tea, have a stiff drink and then see The Play That Goes Wrong. Even if you can't bring yourself to join the guffawing, you'll marvel at the precision action. Hats off to the cast: Rob Falconer, Henry Shields, Greg Tannahill, Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, Charlie Russell, Dave Hearn, Nancy Wallinger, Alys Metcalfe, Leonard Cook.

References
The Play That Goes Wrong, Tickets
Photograph, Alastair Muir taken from telegraph.co.uk

Duchess Theatre, 3-5 Catherine Street, London WC2B 5LA