I can pinpoint exactly when The Goes Wrong Show first happened to me. It was the sixth of December, 2025, and I was at my parents' house to see some relatives who were visiting.
My teenage cousin, H, had removed himself from the socialisation and was watching a Minecraft video on the television in the sitting room. I asked if I could read in the room while he watched television; I thought that'd be a nice, low-pressure way to hang out. He switched from Minecraft videos to an episode of The Goes Wrong Show: "You'd probably like this more."
I'd been aware of the existence of The Play That Goes Wrong for a long time; it's hard not to be if you're a Londoner! If you've lived in London at any point in the last decade, or if a visit has ever brought you to the West End, chances are that you've seen posters for it at Tube stations. I remember the evocative name caught my eye when it first started showing up.
A friend of mine had seen The Play That Goes Wrong years ago and said it was hilarious, so it had stuck in my mind as something that was probably good fun, even if I had no actual plans to see it. I'd never heard of The Goes Wrong Show, but I realised instantly, from the style of the logo, that it was related to The Play That Goes Wrong, so I was interested to see what it was like!
The episode H put on was 'The Lodge'. As I had anticipated, it showed actors putting on a play - in this case a ghost story - and that play going wrong in every possible way. My main initial impressions:
a) this is very silly
b) this is pretty fun
c) there's a lot of genuinely impressive effort and skill on display; it must take such precise timing to make things 'go wrong' correctly
d) who is that man?????
The man in question was the creepy owner of the haunted lodge. He was compelling! He was hot! He was loud and weird and ridiculous! At one point he got knocked out by a vase falling on his head, and somehow that only made him more attractive to me; it was such a well-done piece of physical comedy.
At one point H's mother, S, came into the room and saw we were watching The Goes Wrong Show. "Oh, it's Robert," she commented, when the man I was so fascinated by happened to be on screen.
S explained that the character of Robert had also been in Peter Pan Goes Wrong, which she had seen on stage. I'd originally assumed that the concept of this show was just 'a play goes wrong' without any kind of story behind it, and I was surprised and interested to discover that the 'actors' involved were actually consistent characters across the different plays.
"He's very good," I said, enraptured.
After 'The Lodge' had finished, we also watched the episode '90 Degrees'. It had less screentime for Robert, alas, but it was an absolutely extraordinary technical achievement, improved even further by the fact that S's mother had now joined us and was absolutely losing it laughing.
So I'd now seen two episodes of The Goes Wrong Show! I'd enjoyed them, but I didn't carry on with the show straight away. Shamefully, what drove me to watch more wasn't actually the comedy; it was the fact that I found myself idly thinking about Robert while I walked down the street. I just wanted to see more of that bizarre handsome weirdo.
The show was on BBC iPlayer, and I couldn't watch it at home because we didn't have a television licence, so I tried out another episode when I next visited my parents. And then another. And another, and another. And then I ordered every Goes Wrong DVD I could get my hands on, and then I started buying theatre tickets, and that's how we've ended up here. I'm so sorry.
Half a year later, incidentally, I paid a visit to the cousins who originally introduced me to The Goes Wrong Show. I confessed to how hot I found Robert, and I was heartened when S said she understood completely. "He's not my usual type," she said, "but he has such presence."
S doesn't really know anything about fanfiction, but she read my fic about Vanessa joining the Cornley Drama Society, The Outsider, and she seemed to enjoy it! She laughed quietly a few times while reading, which was very gratifying.
"You should get in touch with Mischief Theatre!" she said, very earnestly. "You should send this to them. I'm sure they'd love knowing that someone put this much thought into their characters."
This was extremely sweet of her to say! But it's also something I would never actually consider doing; it just doesn't feel right to present fanfiction to the original creators. If Mischief ever come across my fanfiction, it is going to be because a third party sent them the link to this website with the message 'lol look at this weirdo', as God intended.