In the interval, I hear a newcomer to Mischief Theatre’s enduring “goes wrong” concept ask if these comic symphonies of am-dram mishaps ever get stale. On the contrary: in the first half of this Dickensian foul-up, much of the pleasure comes from watching the company spring-load a very familiar crop of gags ready to explode after the break.
Long-term Mischief watchers will guess, for example, that when a Maltesers box is dropped during rehearsals inside the model box for the Cornley Polytechnic Players’ A Christmas Carol, it will end up as a giant-sized component of the set. They will know that the rivalry between supercilious director Chris and bombastic actor Robert, fond of essaying the classics in the nude, will result in crazed feats of sabotage when the production gets under way. And they can be sure that dim-witted Dennis, who thinks he is auditioning for the role of “Frog Cratchit” after seeing the Muppets’ musical as research, will well and truly cook everyone’s goose.
“We’re not muppets are we?” disparages Chris, before one blissfully silly routine after another proves otherwise. How to choose even a favourite ghost from all these mix-ups? There’s the inexhaustibly hilarious Henry Lewis, as Robert, playing the Ghost of Christmas Present wearing a giant gift-wrapped box. Or Nancy Zamit, as Annie, zanily gyrating – with limbs launched in all directions – in the role of the Ghost of Christmas Past. And when Trevor (Chris Leask) performs as the Ghost of Christmas Future – or the one who, ahem, hasn’t come yet – it’s a tricky piece of physical comedy done inside a 10ft tall costume. Some of Roberto Surace’s outfits are as outlandishly amusing as Libby Todd’s set designs.
Among Mischief’s other old hands are Jonathan Sayer who returns as Dennis and co-writes, with Lewis and Henry Shields, a script that goes in different directions to their 2017 BBC TV comedy of the same name. Greg Tannahill is given a nice in-joke that his last leading role (in Peter Pan Goes Wrong, also done for TV and stage) has left him with such a fear of heights he needs to avoid the upper register when singing. Matt Cavendish pulls off a whirlwind set piece playing five characters on his own while newer Mischief members deliver the signature mix of frustration (Daniel Fraser as Chris) and delusion (Sasha Frost as Sandra).
The play within the play upends Charles Dickens’s perennial by making Tiny Tim a towering monster and leaving Scrooge even more bitter at the end of the tale. But the backstage story delivers goodwill when megalomaniacal director Chris – too cheap to turn the heating on – warms to his theatrical companions and vice versa.
As the am-dram players’ lines go out of sync or their dialogue doesn’t match what we see, Matt DiCarlo’s production hums with comedic harmony. Mischief are one of precious few companies to bring on the stage management team at the curtain call – further proof that these team players are the antithesis of Ebenezer. Bless them, every one.
At Apollo theatre, London, until 26 January
