I first went to see The Play That Goes Wrong on 8 February 2026 at the Duchess Theatre, with my housemates Tem and Rei. It was a lot of fun!
During our meal before the play, my housemates teased me a fair bit for my nerves about seeing the character of Robert Grove in person, given my huge and embarrassing crush on him. I tried to express that it was less nerve-racking than seeing him on stage in Christmas Carol Goes Wrong a few weeks earlier, when he was actually played by the role's originator, Henry Lewis, the handsomest man in the world.
Riona: It'll be fine. I've already seen him in hard mode. (realising what I've just said) ...so to speak.
I ended up blushing very badly over the course of this conversation.
Tem: You're glowing, Riona. Almost like you've had a rendezvous with the handsomest man in the world and you have some news to share.
In the event, Robert Jackson was excellent in the role of Robert! He was very recognisably the same character, and he had a good strong voice, which I think is essential; you're just not Robert Grove if you're not acting as loudly as possible. I loved his bellowing of 'OF COURSE THEY DIDN'T NOTICE! I IMPROVIIIIIISED', and he had a great outraged glare when the audience laughed at his death scene. I also like that the actor is called Robert; I think Robert Grove would approve of being played by someone with the correct name.
But I was tragically unhot for him. It's not your fault, sir; you've got stiff competition. So to speak.
(I say that, but I am starting to find Jackson's Robert increasingly attractive as I comb through images for this website. Perhaps I am doomed to have a crush on every incarnation of Robert.)
Anyway! That's the embarrassing preamble done; let's get to my thoughts on the actual play.
Before the play began, Trevor and the other stagehands went around the audience asking if anyone had seen a dog, 'about this big, answers to Winston'. When Trevor reached the row where I was sitting with Rei and Tem:
Trevor: Have you seen a dog?
Rei: No, we only have cats.
Trevor: What's his name? Not Winston?
Rei: Sorry, not Winston, no.
Trevor: Well, rename him to Winston and we'll be back in twenty minutes for your audition.
We ended up debating which cat we should rename amongst ourselves. I think, of our two cats, Dipper would be the better actor, but Zuko would be more suited to a Goes Wrong play; he's got a very comedic large-eyed stare.
Annie and Trevor dragged a man out of the audience pre-show and forced him to hold up various parts of the set so they wouldn't collapse, which was very funny to me because I included something similar in my fanfiction about how Vanessa joined the drama society. Glad to know I correctly estimated the backstage team's willingness to rope the audience in if necessary!
It was fun to see the characters' different responses to the audience. Max lives for the audience's approval; if something made us laugh or applaud, he'd often do it two or three times. Robert glared furiously at us when we laughed at a serious moment. Dennis became confused and upset when the audience laughed at his delivery of a line. While Chris was trying to find the missing ledger, an audience member called out its location - 'Look under the couch!' - and he was absolutely livid. 'Excuse me?' he demanded, approaching the audience. 'Oh, don't be shy now! Feel free to chip in! Have you ever been to the theatre before? This isn't a pantomime! I suggest you look up what the "fourth wall" is and shut up.'
After lambasting the offending audience member for a while, Chris turned and froze up when he saw that the ledger was, in fact, under the couch.
'You're welcome,' the audience member called.
(Jack Hardwick was great in the role of Chris, incidentally! He had just the right energy for the character, capturing both the desperate hope and the fury, and it was fun to watch him increasingly lose his mind as everything fell apart. Hardwick collected some money for charity after the play, and Tem donated, so one of my housemates has now been personally thanked by Chris Bean.)
I enjoyed that Max would start clapping as well whenever the audience applauded. He's just having a good time.
My favourite Robert moment in the play: the coal scuttle catches fire, he rushes on with a fire extinguisher to frantically put it out, he says, 'Sorry, wrong room' to the characters present and leaves, and then we hear him bellowing 'OF COURSE THEY DIDN'T NOTICE! I IMPROVISED!' backstage.
There was one point where Robert had accidentally knocked Sandra flat by opening a door into her face, and Robert and Jonathan had to pull Sandra through the window to remove her from the set, and Sandra's thighs ended up wrapped around Robert's neck, and I just feel it's important for me to make a note of this. Nobody except me enjoys the idea of Robert and Sandra as a couple; there are a grand total of four Robert/Sandra fics on AO3, and I wrote all of them. I appreciate the play's inclusion of an aspect calculated to appeal to me and me alone.
Towards the end of the 'time loop' (in which the same dialogue sequence plays out several times in a row), Robert eventually just choked the white spirit down rather than spitting it out. I thought this was a great detail, and I realised on my second viewing of the play (with a different Robert) that it doesn't happen every time, so I thought I should note it down!
During the interval, I started moving through the audience to get back to my seat, forcing the people I was passing to stand, then went, 'Wait, I'm in the wrong row' and started to retreat, then realised I was in fact in the right row and had to keep going. 'I promise I'm not part of the play,' I had to tell the poor people I'd inconvenienced.
When both the women were incapacitated, Trevor was forced into the role of Florence. Trevor rebelled when the script called for him and Max's character to kiss: 'Kissing him: not my job! No one here wants to see me kiss anyone.' The audience whooped and cheered, which of course meant that Max, who will do anything to please the audience, kissed Trevor. Whilst Max/Trevor is not a pairing I'm particularly passionate about, I do enjoy the concept of the Cornley Drama Society as the world's worst polycule, so I am compelled to note down this interaction.
I also really enjoyed the bewilderment of the other actors when, unaware that Trevor was now playing Florence, they entered the room and saw Max and Trevor kissing on stage.
Robert: What the hell is going on here?
Max: I can explain!
Robert: I don't think you can.
(Wonderful delivery from Robert Jackson on 'I don't think you can', incidentally! I still vividly remember the way he emphasised every word.)
There was an upper floor of the stage that progressively broke more and more, slanting more and more severely, threatening to send the actors up there plummeting to stage level. As Tem commented, even though we knew perfectly well that this was supposed to happen and they'd been doing this play for years, this was incredibly stressful! It really felt like someone was going to get hurt!
Towards the end, by which point more or less the entire set had collapsed, Robert spent a long time just sitting against a wall with a hand over his face, and I enjoyed watching him have a silent internal breakdown.
The Play That Goes Wrong gives the story of how Annie became one of the actors in the Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society: she started out as a stagehand, was forced to play Florence when Sandra was incapacitated, started to enjoy herself and ended up physically fighting with Sandra to keep the role. After that strained beginning, I'm glad Annie was allowed to stay on as an actor!
It's interesting to watch The Play That Goes Wrong, which was the first major Goes Wrong production, and which the creators presumably assumed at the time would be the only major Goes Wrong production. It's very focused on the technical side of things going wrong, with the characters taking more of a back seat (although the characters are still very much there even at this early stage; everyone was easily recognisable despite being played by different actors), and it tries to cram in every disaster it possibly can.
By contrast, Christmas Carol Goes Wrong, Mischief Theatre's most recent Goes Wrong stage production (not to be confused with the television special of the same name, which had a completely different script), was very character-focused and a lot more restrained when it came to things actually going wrong.
I really enjoy the 'things technically going wrong' aspect; it's a lot of fun, and always beautifully timed! But I'm also glad that, over time, the Goes Wrong universe has started to focus a little more on the characters themselves; I think it helps to keep the concept fresh.