The Mischief Theatre team, who are responsible for such calamitous hits as The Play That Goes Wrong and The Comedy About A Bank Robbery, have been given a six-part series by the BBC.
Due to be aired on BBC One, The Goes Wrong Show will be based on the successful stage show, The Play That Goes Wrong, and will be filmed in front of a live studio audience.
Following the unlucky, underprepared and clumsy antics of everyone’s favourite amateur actors, The Cornley Drama Society, the show will consist of six brand-new stories of theatrical catastrophe, each lasting 30 minutes.
Not much has been given away yet, but one of the stories will be a gripping courtroom drama entitled ‘A Trial to Watch’, and another will be a World War II spy thriller called ‘The Pilot’ (which of course, is not the pilot episode). In these episodes, you’ll see some familiar faces of The Cornley Drama Society, including prolific over-actor Robert Grove, screen-hogging Sandra Wilkinson and the artistically mistrusted Dennis Tyde.
Keeping it in the Olivier-award winning Mischief family, the BBC show will be written by and starring the original founding Mischief Theatre members; Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, and Henry Shields, alongside Nancy Zamit, Charlie Russell, Bryony Corrigan, Greg Tannahill, Dave Hearn and Chris Leask.
Henry Lewis, co-writer and co-founder of Mischief Theatre, says: “Ever since we first began to make things go wrong all the way back in 2012 it has been a dream of ours to bring a series based on this joyful brand of humour to the screen, and so when the BBC commissioned The Goes Wrong Show it was a dream come true. We’re so grateful for this incredible opportunity, and we can’t wait to get started on making some truly terrible programmes. We are still very short on equipment – if you have a camcorder we can borrow (in any condition) please do fax us.”
The team behind Mischief Theatre is certainly going to be busy bees this year, as they’re also performing a year-long season at the Vaudeville Theatre from September 2019. The first show in the residency is entitled Groan Ups, and follows a group of characters from childhood to adulthood, focusing on their life at the ages of six, thirteen and thirty.
The characters from The Comedy About A Bank Robbery also helped us announce when public ticketing went on sale for the Olivier Awards 2019 with Mastercard…
Filming for The Goes Wrong Show will begin in March 2019, in Manchester.
To see Mischief Theatre on the stage, tickets for The Play That Goes Wrong, The Comedy About A Bank Robbery and Groan Ups are on sale on OfficialLondonTheatre.com right now!