''Magic Goes Wrong'' is a comedy play by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer,

Henry Shields Henry Shields (born 21 August 1988) is an English playwright and actor. Shields grew up in Hastings and his family still live there. He initially studied nursing at university but dropped out after a year and auditioned for drama school, gaini ...

(of Mischief Theatre Company) and

Penn & Teller Penn & Teller, Penn Jillette and Teller, are American magicians, entertainers, and scientific skeptics who have performed together since the late 1970s. They are noted for their ongoing act that combines elements of comedy with magic. The duo h ...

. It follows the series of Mischief's ''Goes Wrong'' series of plays following ''

The Play That Goes Wrong ''The Play That Goes Wrong'' is a 2012 play by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, and Henry Shields of Mischief Theatre Company. It won Best New Comedy at the 2015 Laurence Olivier Awards. As of September 2021, the show has been running since 2012 ...

'' and '' Peter Pan Goes Wrong''.

Production history

The play opened in the Quays Theatre at

The Lowry The Lowry is a theatre and gallery complex at Salford Quays, Salford, Greater Manchester, England. It is named after the early 20th-century painter L. S. Lowry, known for his paintings of industrial scenes in North West England. The complex ope ...

Salford Salford () is a city and the largest settlement in the City of Salford metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. In 2011, Salford had a population of 103,886. It is also the second and only other city in the metropolitan county afte ...

from 6 to 11 August 2019, prior to its opening in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

West End West End most commonly refers to: * West End of London, an area of central London, England * West End theatre, a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London, England West End may also refer to: Pl ...

at the

Vaudeville Theatre The Vaudeville Theatre is a West End theatre on the Strand in the City of Westminster. As the name suggests, the theatre held mostly vaudeville shows and musical revues in its early days. It opened in 1870 and was rebuilt twice, although each ...

from 14 December 2019. It is notable for employing a far greater level of

black comedy Black comedy, also known as dark comedy, morbid humor, or gallows humor, is a style of comedy that makes light of subject matter that is generally considered taboo, particularly subjects that are normally considered serious or painful to discus ...

than previous instalments in the ''Goes Wrong'' series, including many on-stage gory demises for the guest characters. Although, slightly paradoxically, the ending is considerably more upbeat and sentimental than the group's other productions. The play was the third Mischief production running simultaneously in the

alongside the long-running productions of ''

'' and ''

The Comedy About a Bank Robbery ''The Comedy About a Bank Robbery'' is a comedy play written by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer and Henry Shields of Mischief Theatre. The play premiered at the Criterion Theatre in London's West End on 31 March 2016, with an official opening night ...

'' (until its closure in March 2020), and the fourth in London while '' Peter Pan Goes Wrong'' played the Christmas 2019 season at the

Alexandra Palace Alexandra Palace is a Grade II listed entertainment and sports venue in London, situated between Wood Green and Muswell Hill in the London Borough of Haringey. It is built on the site of Tottenham Wood and the later Tottenham Wood Farm. Orig ...

. In March 2020, the play stopped performances due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identified ...

. The play resumed its London run on 21 October 2021 at a new venue, the

Apollo Theatre The Apollo Theatre is a Grade II listed West End theatre, on Shaftesbury Avenue in the City of Westminster, in central London.

. A UK tour commenced at the

Curve In mathematics, a curve (also called a curved line in older texts) is an object similar to a line, but that does not have to be straight. Intuitively, a curve may be thought of as the trace left by a moving point. This is the definition that ...

Production history

Cast and characters

Awards and nominations

References