Noel Coward Theatre (14 April 2025 to 5 September 2025)
The latest production by Mischief Theatre, the group behind The Play That Goes Wrong, and many other comedy classics.
Directed by Matt Dicarlo
Written by Henry Lewis & Henry Shields
Set Design by David Farley
Lighting Design by Johanna Town
Sound Design & Composition by Jon Fiber for Jollygoodtunes
Costume Design by Deborah Andrews
Related Equipment:
Travelator
The set, as with many Mischief Theatre productions, is full of surprises, including a Travelator across the stage, enabling one particular sequence to take place seamlessly as our heroes move backwards and forwards through a hotel corridor, and enabling some excellent sight gags throughout. The travelator is provided by an external commercial supplier called Canning Conveyor, who have worked on a number of productions and movie/TV projects. Although the electric motor drive can be heard from the auditorium, it doesn’t matter, as the visual gags come thick and fast, and the motion of props and set pieces across the stage isn’t subtle.
Battenberg
Mr Kipling Mini Battenberg on The Comedy About Spies programme
One of the highlights of Act One is the incredibly complex sequence using the so-called Battenberg set (named after the delicious marzipan-coated sponge cake with 4 sections). The 4 hotel rooms are a challenge for audience visibility and for lighting. The visibility is solved with the addition of a live video feed to a number of monitors around the parts of the auditorium that can’t see the upstage parts of the rooms. There are cameras on each room, as well as wide shots when more than one room is in play.
The lighting challenge is huge, as there isn’t sufficient room for a rig built into the ceiling of the rooms, and although there is an LED strip light in each ceiling, and practical wall lights, the bulk of the lighting has to be from shallow front-of-house positions, which create some tricky shadows. But again, this is a very minor issue, as the fact that the rooms are lit clearly ensures nothing is missed.
The ‘Battenberg’ set from The Comedy About Spies, photo by Matt Crockett.
Mischief Theatre
See also The Play That Goes Wrong, The Comedy About A Bank Robbery, Magic Goes Wrong, Peter Pan Goes Wrong
Trailer
Behind the Scenes
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