There was a cheap front-row ticket available for The Play That Goes Wrong on Saturday.

I cannot do this, I thought. I saw this play less than a week ago. I cannot possibly afford to get into the habit of seeing this play every week.

So I did the sensible, responsible thing: I begged my housemates to buy the ticket instead, so I wouldn't be able to. Tem picked it up, went to the show and had a good time! I enjoyed hearing about xyr experiences afterwards.

Tem had brought a feathery crow-shaped handbag to the theatre. There's a bit before the show begins where the character of Trevor asks the audience whether they've seen a dog, Winston, who's expected to star in the play. Apparently, the exchange between Trevor and Tem went something like this:

Tem: Is the dog still missing?
Trevor: (pointing at Tem's crow bag) What's that?
Tem: It's a crow! Her name's Lenore.
Trevor: That's brilliant, that is.
Tem: Maybe she could play the dog?
Trevor: She could be the understudy? Maybe you could voice her. Can you bark?

When Tem was telling us about this:

Tem: So I started barking, right there in the theatre. Which is not something I usually do.
(Rei starts snickering.)
Rei: You did petplay with Trevor.
Tem: I... yes, I suppose I did do petplay with Trevor. I barked in front of a theatre of people just because a man told me to. (pointing aggressively at me) Put that on your Dreamwidth, Riona.

Afterwards, both Robert's actor and Trevor agreed that, if they'd used Tem's crow in place of the missing dog, it would have saved the play.

A small child in Tem's front row apparently took the missing dog VERY SERIOUSLY. She checked under everyone's seats and asked, 'Has anyone checked backstage?' When she asked Chris how the search for the dog was going, his response was 'The dog's lost? Oh, Christ.'

The same child also very sincerely asked 'Are you okay?' whenever someone was hurt in the play. Which is cute! Although it does sound like she had a very concerning afternoon at the theatre.

After Tem had regaled us with xyr theatrical adventures:

Me: By the way, I'm going to be out on Wednesday evening.
Tem: Oh, what are you doing?
Me: N-normal things.
(pause)
Tem: Are you going to The Play That Goes Wrong again?
Me: ...maybe.
Tem: Riona! I went to the theatre so you wouldn't have to, and then I came back to find you'd bought more theatre tickets while I was at the theatre! So there was no point to it at all! Why did I even go to the theatre? Just to 'have a good time'??

So, yes, I went to see The Play That Goes Wrong for the fourth time yesterday. I'm an embarrassment.

I'd brought a friend of mine, Fedz, who was seeing the show for the first time. 'This is incredibly stupid,' he commented in the interval, 'and I love it.'



Part of the reason I wanted to see the current Play That Goes Wrong cast again was because I hadn't yet seen Raphael Bushay, Robert's principal actor. I'd loved Will Bishop, his understudy! But there was a Robert I hadn't seen, and that would not stand.

I'm so glad I went. Raphael Bushay is an incredible Robert. Powerful voice, overwhelming presence, just as Robert should be. I am rolling in Robert riches.

He and Matthew Spencer's Chris looked pretty good standing next to each other, too. I think they should make out, and I'm not the only one, of which more later.

The whole current cast is fantastic, actually. Spencer is such a tightly wound, desperate, furious Chris; Lucinda Turner is an immaculate Sandra in her looks and line delivery and mannerisms, the way she holds herself; Ruby Ablett is such an endearing Annie; Alex Bird's Dennis is breaking my heart. It's a great time to watch The Play That Goes Wrong.


Before the show, as Trevor strode past us, speaking to Chris and Annie, we overheard him saying, 'He's the only one who has a gun.' I'd love to know the full context! He's probably talking about Robert, who, as we know from the Cornley Drama Festival, always carries a gun on stage.

Notably, Chris shoved Trevor against the edge of the stage in a fit of rage last time, and that didn't happen on this occasion. I'd wondered how scripted the pre-show shenanigans were, and evidently there's a fair amount of room for variation!

Before the play officially begins, Annie enlists an audience member to hold up the fallen mantelpiece while she tries to reattach it. On this occasion, said audience member accidentally knocked down a panel of the fireplace, which is not supposed to happen at this stage. I could see Trevor covering his mouth, trying not to corpse.


There's a point early in the play where Trevor fails to play the sound of the doorbell because he's not paying attention. The previous times I've seen this play, Trevor has just been messing around on his phone. On this occasion, the actors and audience all turned to Trevor's tech box to see him finishing up a packet of crisps in a leisurely fashion.


After extinguishing the fire in the coal scuttle, Robert is forced to improvise to explain his presence in the room; this is a genuine moment of improvisation by Robert's actor and is different every time. On this occasion, Robert hesitated, then said, 'I just needed some... ah, some coal, for the annual Christmas life drawing session we have here at Haversham Manor. Arthur the gardener is currently modelling for us. I can never seem to capture his bushy... his bushy... his bushy eyebrows.'


A performance detail I enjoy: at the end, the set collapses just after Chris's character is shot. Chris remains standing on stage, frozen in incredulous horror, until Jonathan reminds him, 'You're dead.' Chris pauses. Raises his finger and purses his lips, as if he's about to launch into a speech, a justification, an insistence that he's the competent one and would never make such a basic mistake. And then he thinks better of it and falls down dead.


I was EXTREMELY BRAVE on this occasion and called out to tell Chris where the ledger was! I was in the second row, which is the ideal location for it: close enough to make myself hard easily, but not in the front row, where it would be far too obvious exactly who had shouted. When it became clear that no one else was going to say anything, I called out, 'It's underneath!' while Chris was searching the chaise longue.

He turned, slowly, with an unblinking, incredulous stare in my direction. I immediately wanted to apologise.

'What's going on here?' he demanded, approaching the audience. 'Just thought you'd join in, did you?'

You've seen straight through me, Chris. I'm sorry. Fortunately, a couple of giggling young women in the front row drew his attention away from me; he snapped 'I'M GLAD YOU'RE HAVING FUN' at them before laying into the audience as a whole for laughing at his serious murder mystery.

I think, by participating, I encouraged the rest of the audience, and they ended up becoming the rowdiest audience I've ever seen at one of these plays. They were a perfectly well-behaved theatre audience right up until they realised the relationship between the actors and the audience was all part of the show!

Lots of enthusiasm, lots of cheering. The audience whooped and cheered the idea of Max kissing Trevor the instant it came up, whereas Trevor usually has to prompt the audience to cheer by saying, 'Nobody wants to see me kiss anyone.'

When Trevor was striking the chimes of the clock, the entire audience counted along, whereas last time it had only been a few kids. While Max was trying to persuade Trevor to play Florence, someone called out, 'You'll be great!' When the script called for Trevor to have a hysterical episode, and he was reluctant, the audience started clapping and chanting, 'E-PI-SODE. E-PI-SODE.' I was amazed they'd previously been so restrained that I'd had to tell Chris where the ledger was. His rant at the audience really let them off the leash; once the fourth wall was broken, they were excited to realise that they could surge through it.

Like last time, Dennis turned away from the audience at one point, upset that we kept laughing at him, and Max comforted him. Unlike last time, the audience went 'awww' aloud, and, when Dennis finally steeled himself and faced us again, we applauded to encourage him. And he started to smile, just a tiny bit! It was cute!

My personal favourite audience moment: when Robert's character had Chris's character at gunpoint, a single visionary member of the audience called out, 'Kiss!'

(Tragically, Robert and Chris take things too seriously to be persuaded. You'd probably have more luck calling out 'Kiss!' in a scene featuring Max (just wants to please the audience), Sandra (likes being sexy) or Annie (who's just discovering the joys of acting for the first time and is SO EXCITED about it).)

I brought this up in conversation with Fedz after the show, and it turned out he'd thought the 'Kiss!' was someone calling from backstage. When he learnt it was unscripted, he commented, 'Yeah, I can see how someone might keep coming back to see this play.' It's always slightly different!



I thought at first, getting into a theatre fandom, that I was lucky to live in London. I have now realised that it is, in fact, a curse. The Play That Goes Wrong is on almost every day! Counting matinées, I could see this play up to eight times per week! It would bankrupt me, obviously, but it is tantalisingly possible.