Knowing the number of thespians on this forum, I thought I'd make a brief mention on this play.
I went to see it tonight (wife won tickets, yay me!) and laughed myself silly.
For those not in the know (and I was one of them until a few days ago) it's a play about an amateur drama company putting on a murder mystery play, only to be foiled...by everything - a wobbly set, missed cues, actors forgetting lines, misplaced props, and so on - but valiantly struggling on and improvising around the unfolding disaster.
It's as though the authors made a list of every disaster they've ever seen on a production, and included it in the play.
But although it looks chaotic, and at one point one actor lost it and started giggling, it's also clear the whole thing is tightly plotted and managed. It also requires the actors to be alert to managing unexpected problems (or taking advantage of them).
If I had any criticism of the production, it was the tendency to try to push the pregnant pauses a few seconds too long, which led to a couple of cases of the audience (un)helpfully interjecting their own commentary (I could have smacked the guy a few seats across who called out "Oops!" a couple of times as the actors realised the latest problem they were facing - I didn't need to know he'd worked out the joke).
So if a production of this play comes to a theatre near you, go see it!
