The Goes Wrong formula has being going right for Mischief Theatre since 2008, when this merry band were a hit at the Edinburgh Fringe. Now they have three shows in the West End, have made inroads on Broadway and their own TV series.
They realised what everybody else knew but no-one else thought to exploit to the extent that they have —that the public love mishap.
It is not for nothing that one of the most memorable moments in my 15 years of going to the National Theatre as a reviewer is not a scene of searing drama but the time the very serious Juno and the Paycock ground to a halt on press night because a door would not open.
Mischief make entire shows out of such moments. Here the set-up is a low-rent magic variety show that exists to raise money for victims of magical tricks that go wrong, for which the company have collaborated with subversive illusionists Penn and Teller to craft the moments that actually need to go to plan if they are to go deliberately wrong as they do.There are also video cameos by Vegas’s own David Copperfield and Derren Brown, both of which feel like opportunities missed.
But the rest is vintage Mischief. The compere is hapless magician Sophisticato, played by co-writer Henry Shields with his customary Cleese-like delivery. Henry Lewis returns as a mind reader with anger issues and third writer-performer Jonathan Sayer is his audience plant who keeps returning in disguise but forgets to change his name.
The comedy is broad as the M25 and the plot is about as directionless. But it is also very funny. On the evening I saw the show Mind Mangler’s attempt to guess the occupation of audience members had to contend with an inordinate amount of retirees in the stalls. Lewis dealt with them with some smart ad-libs and more well-directed anger.
One wonders how long this team will want to keep keep rebooting the same formula. But among all the deliberate incompetence there is genuinely well wrought magic in this show.
This the second of three new Mischief productions to open at the Vaudeville. So they must believe that whatever else they are tempted to do, it’s unlikely to go as right as Goes Wrong.
