Theatrical folk are said to be superstitious — saying “break a leg” and never breathing the name of the “Scottish play” (I’ll say it — Macbeth).
Henry Lewis, the lead actor in this weekend’s The Play That Goes Wrong, isn’t one of them however — perhaps having seen how badly things can go with a play, he’s happy to leave it all up to fate.
The Play That Goes Wrong is exactly that — a comic West End play about a drama group putting on a play that faces mishap after toe-curling mishap.
“It’s very funny, it’s all about a murder mystery that goes off the rails,” said Lewis, a British actor who graduated from the London Academy of Music & Dramatic Art in 2011 and has been a mainstay in the hit play. “It’s a classic British farce — like Noises Off meets Fawlty Towers — with physical comedy.”
Indeed, the play is a celebration of slapstick humour, as the audience watch the hapless Cornley Polytechnic Dramatic Society put on a murder mystery where doors don’t open, actors get knocked out and sets fall down. “It harks back to the silent film era, Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin,” adds Lewis.
The play being performed in Dubai at the Madinat Theatre from June 5-7 is a slightly bigger version of the show that was in London, having been expanded to two acts for the Mischief Theatre Company’s UK and international tour for a 90-minute show and “bigger physical comedy”, says Lewis.
Lewis and his company aren’t immune to things going wrong, however. One actor dislocated a shoulder towards the end of the second act, says Lewis, although in true showbusiness style, he didn’t hop into an ambulance until the play was finished.
