Review: The Play That Goes Wrong

Review: The Play That Goes Wrong | Longmont Theatre Company | Longmont, CO | Curtain Up | Eric Fitzgerald

Are we attending Longmont Theatre Company’s production of The Play That Goes Wrong, or have we somehow stumbled into The Murder at Haversham Manor? The confusion begins the moment you walk through the doors. Ushers hand you a playbill for Haversham Manor, and before you can question it, the show has already begun—quite literally—around you. What follows is over two hours of nonstop, uproarious laughter, the kind of sustained comic mayhem rarely heard at any other production. It’s a runaway train of theatrical disaster, and the audience is more than happy to be aboard.

Written by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, and Henry Shields—the mischievous trio behind Mischief Theatre—The Play That Goes Wrong has become a global phenomenon since its 2012 debut at London’s Old Red Lion Theatre, followed by a West End transfer in 2014 and a Tony‑winning Broadway run in 2017. Longmont Theatre Company brings that legacy of calamity to Colorado with director Rob Mess at the helm, launching the company’s 70th season with a bang, a crash, and at least three accidental pratfalls. Seventy seasons is no small feat in the ever‑shifting theatrical landscape, and this opener feels like a well‑earned victory lap.

Back to the Cornley Drama Society production of The Murder at Haversham Manor: the evening’s “serious” mystery concerns the untimely death of Charles Haversham (Jadd Miller), discovered in his grand manor by his fiancée, Florence Colleymoore (Jill Dalton), and her brother, Thomas Colleymoore (Robert Janacek). Inspector Carter (Holden Grace) arrives to sort out the mess, but his investigation is complicated by the increasingly frantic efforts of stage crew members Annie (Madison Sinsel) and Trevor (Bunk Hess), who keep getting dragged into the action. Adding to the chaos is Terence Keane, gleefully portraying both Cecil Haversham and Arthur the Gardener with wide‑eyed enthusiasm and a flair for overacting that becomes its own running joke. As suspicions rise, alibis crumble, and the corpse refuses to stay put, the entire Haversham household—Florence, Thomas, Perkins the butler (Matthew Deets), Cecil, Arthur, and the ever‑exasperated Inspector—find themselves trapped in a spiraling whodunit that grows more chaotic with every collapsing prop and missed cue.

The Cast and Crew of The Murder at Haversham Manor/The Play That Goes Wrong | Photography credit: Longmont Theatre Company

Yes, the laughter begins with the Cornley Drama Society’s local staging of The Murder at Haversham Manor, but it quickly unravels into a full‑tilt theatrical catastrophe—one so cheerfully out of control that the real fun is watching how spectacularly everything refuses to cooperate. It’s impossible to catalog the sheer bevy of sight gags that fire off in rapid succession; they come at you like comic buckshot. Much of the heroic labor of keeping the production “afloat” falls to the assistant stage manager, Melissa Baker, along with the nimble, quick‑thinking set crew—Joseph Bowman, Daphne Moore, and Austin Moore—who are forever patching, propping, and rescuing whatever has just gone wrong. Even the playwright, Susie H.K. Brideswell (Courtney Velarde), and Sir Peter Innus (Peter Johnson), Cornley’s founder and president emeritus, find themselves swept into the chaos, proving that in this universe, no one is safe from the mayhem.

The entire cast is remarkably sharp, but several performances rise to the surface with particular delight. Terence Keane, as both Cecil Haversham and Arthur the Gardener, delivers a buoyant, scene‑stealing turn—leaning into Cecil’s eager theatrics and Arthur’s rustic cluelessness with a grin that seems powered by its own internal spotlight. Holden Grace’s Inspector Carter cuts a striking figure onstage, carrying himself with a cool, commanding presence that makes every entrance feel like the start of a new chapter in the investigation. Robert Janacek brings Thomas Colleymoore a wonderfully frazzled energy, forever teetering between propriety and panic as the manor’s secrets pile up around him. And Madison Sinsel, as Annie, is a comic revelation—her transformation from reluctant backstage problem‑solver to full‑throttle performer becomes one of the evening’s most joyful running gags.

L to R: Jill Dalton, Jadd Miller, Madison Sinsel | Photography credit: Longmont Theatre Company

A production like The Play That Goes Wrong demands direction of almost surgical precision, and Rob Mess delivers it with a steady hand and a wicked sense of timing. Every collapsing shelf, mistimed entrance, and “accidental” pratfall must land with clockwork accuracy, and Mess orchestrates the pandemonium so cleanly that the audience never sees the seams. It’s the kind of direction that looks effortless only because it’s anything but—an intricate ballet of misfires, mishaps, and controlled chaos that requires absolute trust between cast, crew, and the person calling the shots. Under Mess’s guidance, Longmont Theatre Company turns theatrical mayhem into art.

The physical production is handsomely realized, with a set that seems to possess its own mischievous personality. Under the steady guidance of set master Robert Janacek, the Haversham Manor interior is engineered to collapse, tilt, jam, and misbehave exactly on cue—a marvel of controlled chaos that becomes one of the evening’s biggest running jokes. Montana Lewis’s costumes are thoughtfully tailored and era‑specific, grounding the farce in a believable 1920s world even as everything around the actors goes gleefully off the rails. Matthew Deets, overseeing both lighting and sound direction, threads the needle between subtle atmospheric support and perfectly timed comedic punctuation; his cues land with the kind of precision that makes every blackout, crash, and musical sting feel like part of the joke.

This production thrives on the strength of its superb ensemble and the deft, razor‑clean direction of Rob Mess, who keeps the chaos spinning with more laughs than lines. It’s a rare pleasure to watch a company lean so fully into comic bedlam—an evening where the joy comes not from mayhem, but from the sheer exhilaration of watching it all unfold with such precision and heart. The Play That Goes Wrong runs through October 3, and it is unquestionably worth the trip to Longmont to revel in an evening of high‑spirited theatrical mischief at Longmont Theatre Company.

For Information and Tickets:https://longmonttheatre.org/