With a host of awards for Best New Comedy to its credit, The Play That Goes Wrong actually appears to be doing something right for West End audiences, and now audiences here will get their chance to witness theatrical disaster on stages across Australia when this hilarious masterpiece stumbles into town.
Described as Fawlty Towers meets Noises Off, The Play That Goes Wrong continues to thrive on the West End and will open in Melbourne in February, before touring nationally. This ridiculous romp will also open on Broadway in the New Year.
UK Director Mark Bell visited Australia recently to undertake casting and was delighted with the array of comic talent on offer. The Producers are proud to announce that they have found a new and doubly incompetent bunch of ‘would be’ thespians ready to take to the Australian stage.
The cast includes Brooke Satchwell, who started her TV career in Neighbours, winning a Logie Award in 1998 for Best Newcomer, and has most recently appeared in Black Comedy, Wonderland and Dirty Laundry Live. Joining her are Darcy Brown, a Green Room Award-winning actor with varied and impressive theatre credits including a recent acclaimed solo performance in MTC’s Peddling.
Francine Cain, who was nominated for a Helpmann Award for her performance in Rock of Ages, and has recently played Frenchy in the national tour of Grease, and Calliope in the Hayes Theatre Co season of the roller-skating musical Xanadu; Actor/Writer Adam Dunn; music theatre performer Luke Joslin.
George Kemp, who appeared in Bull for The Old Fitz (Sydney Arts Guide Winner of Best Independent Drama) and Sport for Jove’s multi award-winning The Taming of the Shrew; Jordan Prosser, a graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts, who works as an actor, writer and director across both stage and screen.
Nick Simpson-Deeks, a NIDA graduate, a three-time Green Room Award nominee and a Mike Walsh Fellow; and Tammy Weller, a graduate from the University of Southern Queensland, who is also a writer and whose play Single Admissions was nominated for six Matilda Awards.
Current Mischief Theatre actor, James Marlowe, who is an original cast member from the West End production of The Play That Goes Wrong and has also performed in the UK tour, Peter Pan Goes Wrong, will join the Australian cast.
The Play That Goes Wrong introduces ‘The Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society’ who are attempting to put on a 1920s murder mystery, but as the title suggests, everything that can go wrong…does, as the accident-prone thespians battle on against all the odds to get to their final curtain call.
Co-written by Mischief Theatre company members Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer and Henry Shields and directed by Mark Bell, The Play That Goes Wrong is a highly physical comedy packed with finely-tuned farce and Buster Keaton inspired slapstick, delivered with split-second timing and ambitious daring.
Starting its life at a London fringe venue with only four paying customers at the first performance, The Play That Goes Wrong is now enjoying its third catastrophic year on the West End and has gone on to play to an audience of over a quarter of a million.
The Play That Goes Wrong opens in Melbourne on 22 February 2017, followed by Adelaide (28 March), Sydney (5 April), Canberra (26 April), Brisbane (4 May) and Perth (31 May). For more information, visit: www.theplaythatgoeswrong.com.au for details.
Image: The Play That Goes Wrong