DISASTER strikes again as Mischief’s calamitous comedy The Play That Goes Wrong hits York this autumn.
The Olivier Award and Tony Award winner, now in its seventh year in the West End, will wreak havoc at the Grand Opera House, York, from September 28 to October 3 on its fourth tour.
The show began life on the London fringe when four friends from drama school set up a company under the name “Mischief” on graduating.
After enticing only four paying customers on the first night, The Play That Goes Wrong has since played to two million people worldwide, taking home an Olivier for Best New Comedy in 2015 and a Tony for its subsequent Broadway transfer.
Mischief have enjoyed further West End success with Peter Pan Goes Wrong, A Comedy About A Bank Robbery, Groan Ups, Mischief Movie Night and Magic Goes Wrong, while their debut six-part television series, The Goes Wrong Show, aired on BBC One. The 2020 commission of a Christmas special, Nativity, will be followed by a second series, now in production.
In The Play That Goes Wrong, the (fictional) Cornley Drama Society are putting on a 1920s’ murder mystery, The Murder At Haversham Manor, but as the title suggests, everything that can go wrong … does! The accident-prone thesps must battle against all the odds to reach their final curtain call, alas for them with ever-more humorous results.
In the 2021 touring cast will be Tom Babbage as Max; Tom Bulpett as Chris; Seán Carey as Jonathan; Leonard Cook as Robert; Edward Howells as Dennis; April Hughes as Sandra; Laura Kirman as Annie and Gabriel Paul as Trevor. Understudies will be Katie Hitchcock, Damien James, Edi De Melo and Aisha Numah.
Co-written by Mischief company members Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer and Henry Shields, the tour production is directed by Sean Turner, with set designs by Nigel Hook, costumes by Roberto Surace, lighting by Ric Mountjoy and sound design by Andrew Johnson.
The Play That Goes Wrong will be completing a hattrick of York visits after playing the Theatre Royal in April 2014 and the Grand Opera House in May 2018. Mischief’s “criminally good” A Comedy About A Bank Robbery made its York debut at the Opera House in February 2019, with soon-to-return Sean Carey as the ace scene stealer.
Tickets for next month’s 7.30pm evening performances and 2.30pm Thursday, Saturday and Sunday matinees are on sale on 0844 871 7615 or at atgtickets.com/York.
