What happens when a staged murder mystery goes wrong? The result is a theatre audience that is guffawing with mirth at every misstep that an actor can possibly make. The UK-based Mischief Theatre is bringing its award-winning The Play That Goes Wrong to Dubai Madinat Theatre this weekend and in Abu Dhabi on Monday.
Written by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer and Henry Shields, who also act in the production, the play-within-a-play is about the Cornley Polytechnic Dramatic Society that has the worst possible luck while trying to stage the ambitious 1920s murder mystery, Murder at Haversham Manor. Actors forget their lines, props go missing, sets collapse and chaos ensues.
“It’s a classic British farce on one level,” says Lewis. “Lots of things are going on and mistakes get magnified in this murder mystery. There are a lot of slapstick and big, physical comedy moments.”
The team began writing the play in 2012 and describe it as Fawlty Towers-meets-Noises Off.
“We have done a lot of improvised work before, but we decided to do a scripted piece for a change. We started to do it in a small theatre in London and were able to continue, take it to West End, and suddenly extend and better the show to take it on tour,” says Lewis. The play has had a successful run at the Edinburgh Festival and won the What’s On Stage awards this year. Dubai will be the second stop in its international tour, after Barbados.
• The Play That Goes Wrong runs from Thursday until Saturday, with two shows a day at Madinat Theatre, Souk Madinat Jumeirah Dubai. It moves to Abu Dhabi Theatre on Monday. Tickets, from Dh160, can be booked at www.madinattheatre.ae and www.ticketmaster.ae
[ aahmed@thenational.ae ]
