Entering the auditorium of the Duchess Theatre, the actors come to the auditorium and tidy up the stage, fix the props (and fail), and sometimes ask the audience for help. As the lights dim, we begin to see the performance of The Murder at Haversham Manor by the Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society. Progressively, as the director (played by Daniel Cech-Lucas) introduces us to the show, we realise that this is the play that goes wrong. During the performance, all the worst nightmares you could think of happening in a play happen. This includes actors missing cues, mispronouncing the lines, props falling off, and actors getting injured and being knocked unconscious. As you think the play couldn't get any worse, in the second act, the stage starts to fall apart even more as the play reaches the end. While the state of the play decreases, the laughter in the auditorium rises throughout the whole night.
Formed in 2008, Mischief Theatre has several acclaimed works throughout the years. The Play That Goes Wrong, first created by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, and Henry Shields in 2014, portrays a play within a play that instantly spurs the audience's joy from the first second to the last.
