The Play That Goes Wrong

I can't help thinking these two points may be related! That is assuming there were also crowds at the stage door a few days earlier in Manchester.

So they were indeed up to something. Rehearsing/ getting back up to speed for the filming but have thrown us all by filming it in the states.

Yes I suppose this must be a rescheduling because of Jonathan Sayer having Covid? I'm don't think he appeared in the second tour week at all, which is when I guess is when they must have originally planned to film.

Yeah, seems a strange thing to do. I can imagine the Duchess might be a bit tight to film in, perhaps?

But they would always have done this with the original cast - there's virtually no point in doing it with others when this cast are so well established with the show and, without a doubt (and for obvious reasons), the strongest cast the show has had.

Doing it in Chicago feels odd though. There must be a reason for it.

No idea why they wouldn't just film this in the UK, but hey, it's being filmed!


The Play That Goes Wrong to Be Filmed for Release With Original Cast

Well I certainly didn't see them filming in the US! Usually US productions come over here to be filmed!

Absolutely thrilled we will get a capture of the original cast, it is so deserved. If any original cast needs to be preserved it's this one.

I'm assuming their recent stint was to dust off any cobwebs and warm up for the filming then, I hope the US audience are receptive like the British audiences for this show. How exciting!

Seems like there’s nothing official. But Nancy’s posted some pictures at Cloud Gate (the big shiny silver sculpture) in Chicago 👀

Yes - it is absolutely true that they use shills. I didn’t like the TV show, so never bothered with their stage shows. I find that chap who does the gurning at the audience absolutely insufferable.

Interestingly it (used to, at least) be one of the few productions with an Actor/ASM. These two paragraphs may be related. I couldn’t possibly comment.

It just seems very obvious humour, as you pointed out. Really not my cup of tea - I couldn’t stand “One Man, Two Guv’nors” either, which I find very similar in tone.

It’s just a bit too Genie from the Les Dennis episode of “Extras” for me. Pause, wait for laughss, gurn at the audience. The mugging, the “corpsing”, it’s trying so, so hard.

I love farce, Ayckbourn’s plays really tickle me, Frayn’s “Noises Off” is still hilarious after umpteen viewings. So, like you, I should be onboard with Mischief.

No plan to release. I understand it was more a case of "we need to film this whilst we are all young and fit enough to put our bodies through the punishment" etc. It'll come out eventually, but not for a good while. 

Eventually saw this last night - really enjoyed it.

However, the front of house staff (or perhaps the theatre's late comer policy) are ridiculous! We had approximately 20 people turn up late over a course of 30 minutes. I had to stand up 6 times in the first 30 minutes of act 1 and had to suffer listening to arguments between the FoH staff and the late patrons over the quality of their seats. After the 6th time of getting up, the people behind us (who had to get up more than us!) told the FoH staff that this was ridiculous. At this point, we'd had about 5 minutes where we were up and down - genuinely had no idea what was happening on stage. FoH said there is no cut off point, so they had to let all late people in - not even at an appropriate time!

Then it became apparent that all of the late people were in a group together, spread around the theatre (some sort of American university trip). So they then, MID PERFORMANCE, were playing musical chairs to sit with their friends. Again, FoH said "they paid for all of the tickets, so we can't stop them moving" - EVEN THOUGH IT WAS HAPPENING 30 MINUTES INTO THE PERFORMANCE! Utter madness.

I came back from the toilet at the interval to find that someone was sitting in my seat as they all wanted to sit together!

Genuinely shocking.

Took a trip to see this today - £20 for the box at the back of the circle is excellent value, especially to be able to move my arms and legs in my seat!

Anyway, the show was excellent and I have a great admiration for the opportunities this provides a lot of new actors - a number of the cast and understudies were in their first West End show, and that is commendable. Excellent performances from all, and raucously funny - it's very easy to see how this is coming up to ten years next autumn.