Breaking Character.

Must admit, Debbie Gibson in the outfit at the end was a good way to finish the show.

As for fake corpsing, the moment in Hairspray between Wilbur and Edna was hilarious the first time. When it happened when we went back it was distinctly less entertaining. For the same reason I would never go back to One Man Two Guvnors. Loved it when I had no idea what was going to happen - it really needed the element of surprise.

Corpsing is unintentionally laughing while in character, hence breaking character. 

I remember seeing Brian Conley corpsing in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in the conversation with the turkey farmer after Me Ol' Bamboo. I'm assuming it was fake after seeing his many other TV and panto appearances. Likewise with Joe Pasquale and Russ Abbot in The Producers after the 'If I could bottle you, I'd shove you under my armpits every day' line.

I didn't mind it that much in One Man Two Guvnors, even when I saw it the second time. But I also remember seeing Spamalot where the Knights Who Say 'Ni' improvise a bit for the actor playing King Arthur to repeat, again I thought it works and it probably was a genuine corpse from King Arthur (Matthew Kelly at the time).

Ohhhh I knew what corpsing was I just didn't get what was meant by fake corpsing.

When I'm at Les Mis (a lot) I know ever track what happens & what goes wrong. There some esp ensemble where they do something different each time and very entertaining to watch. I remember one time one of the swings playing Babet walked into the scene he plays it very cocky. Then as he goes to pose the cane slips on the stage and falls to the ground. I looked at him (I was in their slip seats) see what he did. He styled it out then there is a point the character turns away but if you were in row of slip seats you basically saw him laugh. It wouldnt have been seen from stalls though.

Then on Wednesday, another swing covering apart with the other. Master of the House is very ensemble joyful bit in the show. Anyway he was meant to arm wrestle the other swing so Thenardier can nick his money out his back pocket. He kind of forgot to do that. So you have Thenardier nicking stuff that maybe he is fully aware of. But becuase of the scene itself the pair laughed.

I saw Toxic Avenger twice it never happened in the first one but I actually cant remember his nam. Anyway the show is funny at one point the audience laughed the actor just started to laugh. So we are now laughig at him laughing. He was trying to compose himself but kept giggling. It eventually stopped. I wouldnt have thought it was something repeated in future shows because he took so long to compose himself.

...act 2 and the actor playing Trevor pretending to get something wrong, by any chance?

Stood out like a sore thumb in Edinburgh.

Arrggghhh! This spoilt 'Hairspray' for me. It's a crap song and to drag it out for so long is unforgivable!