The Play That Goes Wrong

The Academic Theatre Company is an amateur and small company, but an enthusiastic one. And with its latest production Murder on Haversham Manor it wants to give its audience what they expect from an honest English detective story set on a country estate in the 1920s. A murdered nobleman, an elegant butler, a cunning elderly inspector, suspicious relatives… From the beginning of the premiere performance, however, everything conspires against the hard-working thespians. One funny accident follows another and everyone starts to lose their nerve under the pressure. Props are out of place, sets collapse unexpectedly, doors can’t be opened, corpses surprisingly come to life, and the actors are phenomenally inept. But there is an inverse relationship here: the less talent, the more will to perform to the last curtain, literally at any cost. Against all odds, will the enthusiastic amateurs manage to show the audience who really killed Charles Haversham?

This wonderfully wacky comedy about the traps and pitfalls of theatrical performance is now in its ninth year as one of the biggest hits in London’s West End and won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Comedy of 2015.