Review – Magic Goes Wrong, Vaudeville Theatre

Phil thinks he knows a thing or two about magic.

After all it was he who was selected by Paul Daniels to perform alongside him and the lovely Debbie McGee in their Edinburgh show a few years back, taking part in a few tricks and ultimately facing the guillotine. When you’re kneeling with your head trapped in a lunette and staring into a head-catching basket stage nerves are replaced by a certain fear of what happens if something should go wrong.

So Phil has not inconsiderable respect for the sheer technical wizardry involved in Mischief Theatre‘s latest venture Magic Goes Wrong (the second production of their year long residency in the west end), in which the team play a hotchpotch of magicians presenting a charity event that of course goes disastrously wrong. Think Tommy Cooper but with a massive budget.

Review – Groan Ups, Vaudeville Theatre

In the week where a new theatrical comedy, The Man in the White Suit, was met with general critical grumpiness you’d need nerves of steel to be opening another. And let’s face it you’d be hard pressed to come up with something more hilarious than Coleen Rooney being dubbed Wagatha Christie.

Review – Mischief Movie Night, Arts Theatre

If you pick up a copy of Mischief Movie Night‘s “Special Rehearsal Edition Script” (Bloomsbury) in the Arts Theatre foyer you’ll find it’s blank.

Of course it is. This is Mischief Theatre‘s (AKA The Play That Goes Wrong team) latest foray onto the West End stage. A show starring most of TPTGW‘s original cast (Bryony Corrigan, Dave Hearn, Charlie Russell, Jonathan Sayer and the Henrys Shields and Lewis etc)  returning to their improv comedy roots in a show “starring them, directed by you!”

Review – The Comedy About A Bank Robbery, Criterion Theatre

Phil did a bit of pre-theatre visit research this week. Accidentally of course. It involved watching two bank-heist-that-go-wrong films; Ben Affleck’s The Town and the filmed-in-a-single-take, but-should-have-been-severely-edited, 138 minute, overpraised German snoozefest Victoria.

Pure coincidence that he would be seeing The Comedy About A Bank Robbery, from Mischief Theatre‘s the Plays That Go Wrong team. Life’s funny like that sometimes innit?

Review – The Play That Goes Wrong, Duchess Theatre

Phil once had the thrill of witnessing a sofa collapsing during Shaw’s yeast infection play Candida.

He can’t remember which of the cast members proved too heavy a burden for said furniture, it could have been Deborah Kerr, Denis Quilley or Patrick Ryecart. Unlikely that it was Maureen Lipman as she played the maid and hired help generally do not get to enjoy the furnishings. It must have been a gloriously accident prone run as apparently her skirt fell off on another occasion.

But at Phil’s performance the sounds of urgent carpentry emanated through the interval curtain which rose to reveal a hastily found piece of wood replacing the missing sofa leg and a cast gingerly lowering their derrières every time they needed to perch upon it. How we giggled.