Don't overthink it: This silly show may be what we need right now
The Play That Goes Wrong
Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House
June 24
Reviewed by CASSIE TONGUE
★★★½
It started in a 60-seat theatre above a London pub, and then took over the world. The Play That Goes Wron g – a farce about an amateur theatre troupe attempting to stage an Agatha Christie-esque murder mystery – is that rare thing in contemporary theatre: a raging commercial smash.
This family-friendly show has been running in the West End for more than a decade and in Spain for almost as long, sparked a plethora of British 'Goes Wrong' TV series and specials, and has played all over the world. It's now back in Australia, wreaking havoc at the Sydney Opera House, after a buzzy 2017 debut.
The show is fast-paced, silly, and engineered to wring every laugh it can out of its material: as the company tries to perform their serious murder mystery, they're contending with mislaid props, actors who don't know their lines (or can't pronounce them) and technicians too busy scrolling to land the right music cue. There are pratfalls, missed cues, and a set that's threatening to come down around the cast at any moment. Who did the murders? We find out eventually, but that's not the point: the point is the carefully scripted chaos.
Originally directed by Mark Bell, overseen here by associate director Anna Marshall, and with a cast (which includes Aunty Donna's Joe Kosky) who have settled into their roles during this Australia/New Zealand tour, it's a polished piece that encourages scenery-chewing.
There's so much to laugh at that it'll catch even the sourest audience member at least once, but you'll get the most out of it if you like your mayhem surface level and easily digestible. There's not much pathos behind all the comedy, meaning that existential human bent of the greatest farces is nowhere to be found. Instead, this is pure escapist comedy: a series of gags, mostly physical, designed to delight.
The cleverest jokes are those feats of engineering, mechanics and rigging when the set itself 'goes wrong'; there's a collapsing set piece that adds the frisson of danger that propels farces to another level. The worst were dated in 2017 and feel ancient now, where the two women onstage are reduced to stereotypes of hysteria and jealous competition, and a moment a potential kiss between two men in the middle of a casting mishap is played for panic. Designed to add to the growing hysteria of a falling-apart production, these elements drag down the mood, more noise than joke.
Am I guilty of overthinking a simple-pleasure comedy? Probably. And I don't want to discount the power this show could have to give kids (recommended for those aged eight and up) their chance to be bitten by the theatre bug, or to give audiences of any age a chance to blow off steam in an increasingly dark world by just having a reason to laugh.
That's probably the best lens through which to view this play: it's a daffy, low-stakes outing that just wants you to cackle – or at least crack a smile – and get those feel-good endorphins flowing.
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The Advertiser
11 hours ago
- The Advertiser
Terence Stamp, who played Superman villain Zod, dies
Terence Stamp liked to recall how he was on the verge of becoming a tantric sex teacher at an ashram in India when, in 1977, he received a telegram from his London agent with news that he was being considered for the Superman film. "I was on the night flight the next day," Stamp said in an interview with his publisher Watkins Books in 2015. After eight years largely out of work, getting the role of the arch-villain General Zod in Superman and Superman II turned the full glare of Hollywood's limelight on the Londoner. Buoyed by his new role, Stamp said he would respond to curious looks from passers-by with a command of: "Kneel before Zod, you bastards", which usually went down a storm. He died on Sunday, aged 87, his family said in a statement. The cause was not immediately known. "He leaves behind an extraordinary body of work, both as an actor and as a writer that will continue to touch and inspire people for years to come," the statement said. Terence Henry Stamp was born in London's East End in 1938, the son of a tugboat coal stoker and a mother who Stamp said gave him his zest for life. As a child he endured the bombing of the city during World War Two and the deprivations that followed. "The great blessing of my life is that I had the really hard bit at the beginning because we were really poor," he said. He left school to work initially as a messenger boy for an advertising firm and quickly moved up the ranks before he won a scholarship to go to drama school. Until then he had kept his acting ambitions secret from his family for fear of disapproval. "I couldn't tell anyone I wanted to be an actor because it was out of the question. I would have been laughed at," he said. He shared a flat with another young London actor, Michael Caine, and landed the lead role in director Peter Ustinov's 1962 adaptation of Billy Budd, a story of brutality in the British navy in the 18th century. That role earned him an Academy Award nomination and filled him with pride. "To be cast by somebody like Ustinov was something that gave me a great deal of self-confidence in my film career," Stamp told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in 2019. "During the shooting, I just thought, 'Wow! This is it'." Famous for his good looks and impeccable dress sense, he formed one of Britain's most glamorous couples with Julie Christie, with whom he starred in Far From the Madding Crowd in 1967. But he said the love of his life was the model Jean Shrimpton. "When I lost her, then that also coincided with my career taking a dip," he said. After failing to land the role of James Bond to succeed Sean Connery, Stamp sought a change of scene. He appeared in Italian films and worked with Federico Fellini in the late 1960s. "I view my life really as before and after Fellini," he said. "Being cast by him was the greatest compliment an actor like myself could get." It was while working in Rome – where he appeared in Pier Paolo Pasolini's Theorem in 1968 and A Season in Hell in 1971 - that Stamp met Indian spiritual speaker and writer Jiddu Krishnamurti in 1968. Krishnamurti taught the Englishman how to pause his thoughts and meditate, prompting Stamp to study yoga in India. Mumbai was his base but he spent long periods at the ashram in Pune, dressed in orange robes and growing his hair long, while learning the teachings of his yogi, including tantric sex. "There was a rumour around the ashram that he was preparing me to teach the tantric group," he said in the 2015 interview with Watkins Books. "There was a lot of action going on." After landing the role of General Zod, the megalomaniacal leader of the Kryptonians, in Superman in 1978 and its sequel in 1980, both times opposite Christopher Reeves, he went on to appear in a string of other films, including as a transgender woman in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert in 1994. Other films included Valkyrie with Tom Cruise in 2008, The Adjustment Bureau with Matt Damon in 2011 and movies directed by Tim Burton. He counted Princess Diana among his friends. "It wasn't a formal thing, we'd just meet up for a cup of tea, or sometimes we'd have a long chat for an hour. Sometimes it would be very quick," he told the Daily Express newspaper in 2017. "The time I spent with her was a good time." In 2002, Stamp married for the first time at the age of 64 - to Elizabeth O'Rourke, a pharmacist, who was 35 years his junior. They divorced in 2008. Asked by the Stage 32 website how he got film directors to believe in his talent, Stamp said: "I believed in myself. "Originally, when I didn't get cast I told myself there was a lack of discernment in them. This could be considered conceit. I look at it differently. Cherishing that divine spark in myself." Terence Stamp liked to recall how he was on the verge of becoming a tantric sex teacher at an ashram in India when, in 1977, he received a telegram from his London agent with news that he was being considered for the Superman film. "I was on the night flight the next day," Stamp said in an interview with his publisher Watkins Books in 2015. After eight years largely out of work, getting the role of the arch-villain General Zod in Superman and Superman II turned the full glare of Hollywood's limelight on the Londoner. Buoyed by his new role, Stamp said he would respond to curious looks from passers-by with a command of: "Kneel before Zod, you bastards", which usually went down a storm. He died on Sunday, aged 87, his family said in a statement. The cause was not immediately known. "He leaves behind an extraordinary body of work, both as an actor and as a writer that will continue to touch and inspire people for years to come," the statement said. Terence Henry Stamp was born in London's East End in 1938, the son of a tugboat coal stoker and a mother who Stamp said gave him his zest for life. As a child he endured the bombing of the city during World War Two and the deprivations that followed. "The great blessing of my life is that I had the really hard bit at the beginning because we were really poor," he said. He left school to work initially as a messenger boy for an advertising firm and quickly moved up the ranks before he won a scholarship to go to drama school. Until then he had kept his acting ambitions secret from his family for fear of disapproval. "I couldn't tell anyone I wanted to be an actor because it was out of the question. I would have been laughed at," he said. He shared a flat with another young London actor, Michael Caine, and landed the lead role in director Peter Ustinov's 1962 adaptation of Billy Budd, a story of brutality in the British navy in the 18th century. That role earned him an Academy Award nomination and filled him with pride. "To be cast by somebody like Ustinov was something that gave me a great deal of self-confidence in my film career," Stamp told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in 2019. "During the shooting, I just thought, 'Wow! This is it'." Famous for his good looks and impeccable dress sense, he formed one of Britain's most glamorous couples with Julie Christie, with whom he starred in Far From the Madding Crowd in 1967. But he said the love of his life was the model Jean Shrimpton. "When I lost her, then that also coincided with my career taking a dip," he said. After failing to land the role of James Bond to succeed Sean Connery, Stamp sought a change of scene. He appeared in Italian films and worked with Federico Fellini in the late 1960s. "I view my life really as before and after Fellini," he said. "Being cast by him was the greatest compliment an actor like myself could get." It was while working in Rome – where he appeared in Pier Paolo Pasolini's Theorem in 1968 and A Season in Hell in 1971 - that Stamp met Indian spiritual speaker and writer Jiddu Krishnamurti in 1968. Krishnamurti taught the Englishman how to pause his thoughts and meditate, prompting Stamp to study yoga in India. Mumbai was his base but he spent long periods at the ashram in Pune, dressed in orange robes and growing his hair long, while learning the teachings of his yogi, including tantric sex. "There was a rumour around the ashram that he was preparing me to teach the tantric group," he said in the 2015 interview with Watkins Books. "There was a lot of action going on." After landing the role of General Zod, the megalomaniacal leader of the Kryptonians, in Superman in 1978 and its sequel in 1980, both times opposite Christopher Reeves, he went on to appear in a string of other films, including as a transgender woman in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert in 1994. Other films included Valkyrie with Tom Cruise in 2008, The Adjustment Bureau with Matt Damon in 2011 and movies directed by Tim Burton. He counted Princess Diana among his friends. "It wasn't a formal thing, we'd just meet up for a cup of tea, or sometimes we'd have a long chat for an hour. Sometimes it would be very quick," he told the Daily Express newspaper in 2017. "The time I spent with her was a good time." In 2002, Stamp married for the first time at the age of 64 - to Elizabeth O'Rourke, a pharmacist, who was 35 years his junior. They divorced in 2008. Asked by the Stage 32 website how he got film directors to believe in his talent, Stamp said: "I believed in myself. "Originally, when I didn't get cast I told myself there was a lack of discernment in them. This could be considered conceit. I look at it differently. Cherishing that divine spark in myself." Terence Stamp liked to recall how he was on the verge of becoming a tantric sex teacher at an ashram in India when, in 1977, he received a telegram from his London agent with news that he was being considered for the Superman film. "I was on the night flight the next day," Stamp said in an interview with his publisher Watkins Books in 2015. After eight years largely out of work, getting the role of the arch-villain General Zod in Superman and Superman II turned the full glare of Hollywood's limelight on the Londoner. Buoyed by his new role, Stamp said he would respond to curious looks from passers-by with a command of: "Kneel before Zod, you bastards", which usually went down a storm. He died on Sunday, aged 87, his family said in a statement. The cause was not immediately known. "He leaves behind an extraordinary body of work, both as an actor and as a writer that will continue to touch and inspire people for years to come," the statement said. Terence Henry Stamp was born in London's East End in 1938, the son of a tugboat coal stoker and a mother who Stamp said gave him his zest for life. As a child he endured the bombing of the city during World War Two and the deprivations that followed. "The great blessing of my life is that I had the really hard bit at the beginning because we were really poor," he said. He left school to work initially as a messenger boy for an advertising firm and quickly moved up the ranks before he won a scholarship to go to drama school. Until then he had kept his acting ambitions secret from his family for fear of disapproval. "I couldn't tell anyone I wanted to be an actor because it was out of the question. I would have been laughed at," he said. He shared a flat with another young London actor, Michael Caine, and landed the lead role in director Peter Ustinov's 1962 adaptation of Billy Budd, a story of brutality in the British navy in the 18th century. That role earned him an Academy Award nomination and filled him with pride. "To be cast by somebody like Ustinov was something that gave me a great deal of self-confidence in my film career," Stamp told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in 2019. "During the shooting, I just thought, 'Wow! This is it'." Famous for his good looks and impeccable dress sense, he formed one of Britain's most glamorous couples with Julie Christie, with whom he starred in Far From the Madding Crowd in 1967. But he said the love of his life was the model Jean Shrimpton. "When I lost her, then that also coincided with my career taking a dip," he said. After failing to land the role of James Bond to succeed Sean Connery, Stamp sought a change of scene. He appeared in Italian films and worked with Federico Fellini in the late 1960s. "I view my life really as before and after Fellini," he said. "Being cast by him was the greatest compliment an actor like myself could get." It was while working in Rome – where he appeared in Pier Paolo Pasolini's Theorem in 1968 and A Season in Hell in 1971 - that Stamp met Indian spiritual speaker and writer Jiddu Krishnamurti in 1968. Krishnamurti taught the Englishman how to pause his thoughts and meditate, prompting Stamp to study yoga in India. Mumbai was his base but he spent long periods at the ashram in Pune, dressed in orange robes and growing his hair long, while learning the teachings of his yogi, including tantric sex. "There was a rumour around the ashram that he was preparing me to teach the tantric group," he said in the 2015 interview with Watkins Books. "There was a lot of action going on." After landing the role of General Zod, the megalomaniacal leader of the Kryptonians, in Superman in 1978 and its sequel in 1980, both times opposite Christopher Reeves, he went on to appear in a string of other films, including as a transgender woman in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert in 1994. Other films included Valkyrie with Tom Cruise in 2008, The Adjustment Bureau with Matt Damon in 2011 and movies directed by Tim Burton. He counted Princess Diana among his friends. "It wasn't a formal thing, we'd just meet up for a cup of tea, or sometimes we'd have a long chat for an hour. Sometimes it would be very quick," he told the Daily Express newspaper in 2017. "The time I spent with her was a good time." In 2002, Stamp married for the first time at the age of 64 - to Elizabeth O'Rourke, a pharmacist, who was 35 years his junior. They divorced in 2008. Asked by the Stage 32 website how he got film directors to believe in his talent, Stamp said: "I believed in myself. "Originally, when I didn't get cast I told myself there was a lack of discernment in them. This could be considered conceit. I look at it differently. Cherishing that divine spark in myself." Terence Stamp liked to recall how he was on the verge of becoming a tantric sex teacher at an ashram in India when, in 1977, he received a telegram from his London agent with news that he was being considered for the Superman film. "I was on the night flight the next day," Stamp said in an interview with his publisher Watkins Books in 2015. After eight years largely out of work, getting the role of the arch-villain General Zod in Superman and Superman II turned the full glare of Hollywood's limelight on the Londoner. Buoyed by his new role, Stamp said he would respond to curious looks from passers-by with a command of: "Kneel before Zod, you bastards", which usually went down a storm. He died on Sunday, aged 87, his family said in a statement. The cause was not immediately known. "He leaves behind an extraordinary body of work, both as an actor and as a writer that will continue to touch and inspire people for years to come," the statement said. Terence Henry Stamp was born in London's East End in 1938, the son of a tugboat coal stoker and a mother who Stamp said gave him his zest for life. As a child he endured the bombing of the city during World War Two and the deprivations that followed. "The great blessing of my life is that I had the really hard bit at the beginning because we were really poor," he said. He left school to work initially as a messenger boy for an advertising firm and quickly moved up the ranks before he won a scholarship to go to drama school. Until then he had kept his acting ambitions secret from his family for fear of disapproval. "I couldn't tell anyone I wanted to be an actor because it was out of the question. I would have been laughed at," he said. He shared a flat with another young London actor, Michael Caine, and landed the lead role in director Peter Ustinov's 1962 adaptation of Billy Budd, a story of brutality in the British navy in the 18th century. That role earned him an Academy Award nomination and filled him with pride. "To be cast by somebody like Ustinov was something that gave me a great deal of self-confidence in my film career," Stamp told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in 2019. "During the shooting, I just thought, 'Wow! This is it'." Famous for his good looks and impeccable dress sense, he formed one of Britain's most glamorous couples with Julie Christie, with whom he starred in Far From the Madding Crowd in 1967. But he said the love of his life was the model Jean Shrimpton. "When I lost her, then that also coincided with my career taking a dip," he said. After failing to land the role of James Bond to succeed Sean Connery, Stamp sought a change of scene. He appeared in Italian films and worked with Federico Fellini in the late 1960s. "I view my life really as before and after Fellini," he said. "Being cast by him was the greatest compliment an actor like myself could get." It was while working in Rome – where he appeared in Pier Paolo Pasolini's Theorem in 1968 and A Season in Hell in 1971 - that Stamp met Indian spiritual speaker and writer Jiddu Krishnamurti in 1968. Krishnamurti taught the Englishman how to pause his thoughts and meditate, prompting Stamp to study yoga in India. Mumbai was his base but he spent long periods at the ashram in Pune, dressed in orange robes and growing his hair long, while learning the teachings of his yogi, including tantric sex. "There was a rumour around the ashram that he was preparing me to teach the tantric group," he said in the 2015 interview with Watkins Books. "There was a lot of action going on." After landing the role of General Zod, the megalomaniacal leader of the Kryptonians, in Superman in 1978 and its sequel in 1980, both times opposite Christopher Reeves, he went on to appear in a string of other films, including as a transgender woman in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert in 1994. Other films included Valkyrie with Tom Cruise in 2008, The Adjustment Bureau with Matt Damon in 2011 and movies directed by Tim Burton. He counted Princess Diana among his friends. "It wasn't a formal thing, we'd just meet up for a cup of tea, or sometimes we'd have a long chat for an hour. Sometimes it would be very quick," he told the Daily Express newspaper in 2017. "The time I spent with her was a good time." In 2002, Stamp married for the first time at the age of 64 - to Elizabeth O'Rourke, a pharmacist, who was 35 years his junior. They divorced in 2008. Asked by the Stage 32 website how he got film directors to believe in his talent, Stamp said: "I believed in myself. "Originally, when I didn't get cast I told myself there was a lack of discernment in them. This could be considered conceit. I look at it differently. Cherishing that divine spark in myself."
ABC News
11 hours ago
- ABC News
Priscilla and Superman star Terence Stamp dies aged 87
British actor Terence Stamp, best known for his roles in Superman and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, has died aged 87.
Perth Now
15 hours ago
- Perth Now
Beloved Superman and Priscilla: Queen of the Desert star dies aged 87
British actor Terence Stamp has died, aged 87. The London-born actor starred opposite Christopher Reeve's Superman as villain Gerneral Zod, in the popular films, released in the 1970s. Stamp famously starred in hit, Priscilla: Queen of the Desert in 1994. Stamp played a transgender woman Bernadette in the hit film. The actor's family announced his death on Sunday, with the cause of death not known. 'He leaves behind an extraordinary body of work, both as an actor and as a writer that will continue to touch and inspire people for years to come,' the family statement said. Stamp called his role in Priscilla one of the best of his career. He said: 'It was only when I got there, and got through the fear, that it became one of the great experiences of my whole career.' Stamp started his acting career on the stage in the 1950s. He acted in repertory theatre, where he met Michael Caine. The pair lived in a flat in central London, as they looked for their big break. Beloved actor Terence Stamp has died, aged 87. Credit: Seven Stamp famously played a transgender woman in Priscilla: Queen of the Desert. Credit: Seven Stamp got his big break on Billy Budd in 1962, based on Herman Melville's seafaring novel. The role got him an Oscar nomination and a Golden Globe for Most Promising Newcomer. He went on to play a dark-haired psychopath who loves butterflies in 1965's The Collector. In 1969, Stamp moved to an ashram in India. Between 1978 and 2019, Stamp appeared in more than 50 films. His final film Last Night in Soho was made in 2021. In his personal life, he had high-profile romances with British supermodel Jean Shrimpton. In 2002, he married Elizabeth O'Rourke, a 29-year-old Australian pharmacist. However, they divorced in 2008. Stamp was born in London's East End, to Thomas Stamp, a tugboat operator with the Merchant Navy, and mother, Ethel. 'When I asked for career guidance at school, they recommended bricklaying as a good, regular job,' Stamp said in a 2011 interview with the Irish newspaper The Sunday Business Post. 'Although someone did think I might make a good Woolworths' manager.'
