Belly-Laugh Funny just Off-Broadway – Mischief Theatre

Dec 27, 2023 by Two Sues On the Aisle

By Sue Weston and Susie Rosenbluth, Two Sues on the Aisle

Two shows that you could and should take the entire family to are now playing at New World Stages (340 West 50th Street, NYC).  The Play That Goes Wrong (previously on Broadway) pokes fun at college theater; and Mind Mangler – A Night of Tragic Illusion is a spoof on magic shows and both are created by Mischief Theatre. They are both British comedies (accents and all) whose slap-stick humor appeals to children (and the inner child in all of us) and encourages some audience participation, and laughter providing a good time for people of all ages.

Mischief Theatre is a British theatre company founded in 2008 by a group of students from the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art dedicated to comedy. Their shows center on choreographed chaos, creating merry mishaps and encouraging the audience to laugh out loud. Mischief Theatre shows are serious about silliness which makes them lighthearted family fun.

If you enjoy the Three Stooges style of humor, Mischief Theater is for you.

The Play That Goes Wrong

The Play That Goes Wrong, written by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, and Henry Shields is a show within a show, a who-done-it that takes place in an isolated manor in the middle of a snowstorm. The director and leading man welcomes the audience to the opening night of The Murder at Haversham Manor, an amateur performance of a murder mystery plagued with funny flagrant foibles, including failures in props and scenery, and actor errors. While budget cuts affected their previous shows which were “Two Sisters,” “The Lion and the Wardrobe” and “Cat”, this performance has a cast of eight.

The storyline gets complicated as they search for the killer, and discover that someone is having an affair and a large sum of money has gone missing. At the end of Act One the characters (finally) realize that the murderer must still be in the manor. The search party includes the investigator and the groundskeeper (with an imaginary dog) search for clues uncovers more plot twists.

There is spitting, fire, and hitting, all appealing to our inner child. The actor’s impeccable timing makes the slapstick work, as floor planks knock the performers out cold, and the door misbehaves, opening or remaining locked at will. In the opening scene, the corpse can’t lie still, and Inchworms his way off stage, briefly standing with his arms and smiling broadly at the audience. Throughout the performance, the entire set falls to pieces to the delight of the audience.

The actors engage the audience. At one point the audience is calling out the location of a book the actor stops and says ‘This is not Dora the Explorer’ which makes everyone laugh louder.

Amature actors are by nature flawed, but in this case, they are purposely funny, incorrectly misreading the lines, and breaking their characters to smile and bow to the audience.  At one point an actor forgets his lines, and they repeat the segment over and over until they finally get it right. They even poke fun at the stage crew who are in full view of the audience and part of the show. When the mantelpiece is missing, they position an audience volunteer to hold it in place.

The writers’ clever use of wordplay, dropped lines, and mispronunciations, keeps older audience members smiling. Innocently substituting a poison bottle for whisky causes the actors to spit after each sip seems never to get old, and becomes a running joke along with actors’ substituting props that is so silly the audience can’t resist chuckling.

This performance works on so many levels, it is wonderfully developed, with extraordinary attention to detail. The Play That Goes Wrong gets the humor exactly right, finding a way to bring humor and a smile to people of all ages.

Mind Mangler – A Night of Tragic Illusion

Mind Mangler – A Night of Tragic Illusion, written by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, and Henry Shields, is essentially a two-person show that pokes fun at illusionists while managing to add a few truly mystifying tricks. Starring Henry Lewis, as a bumbling magician with a complicated back-story, and Jonathan Sayer as the audience ‘volunteer’, both prone to improvisation. This show engages the audience in the most expected ways, upon entering the theater, the audience is encouraged to try to open a safe by entering a code and writing a secret on a card included in the program. While the safe is not part of the act (at least in our show) the Mind Manger does attempt to guess the secrets putting the audience in the spotlight.

Initially many of his bits intentionally go wrong, like when he points to an audience member and guesses what they do for a living, to match an answer he has in his pocket, selecting indoor work for an advocate for sugar regulation, and when he fails to guess the name of the audience participant, insisting that his name is John, which is what was prewritten on a chalkboard. These answers become a running joke throughout the performance.

The routines go very wrong when he selects Jonathan Sayer to join him on stage, each time wearing a white T-shirt that reads “audience member” or “different audience member” as a goofy, clueless, volunteer who messes up epically and hilarious throughout the show.

As a parody of magic, this show mixes silly bits, with mind-boggling tricks, ripping a newspaper which is then restored as a whole, bending a spoon (and all the metal on stage), and revealing a hidden secret in Rubik’s cubes. For the finale, and the best illusion of the night the Mind Mangler unlocks a tube, which was suspended and locked over the stage for the entire performance, he unrolls a scroll and truly astounds the audience.

Mind Mangler is serious about magic, wearing a medal from the UK Magic Society around his neck. His life includes a messy divorce with a vengeful ex-sister-in-law who changed the show name from Magic to Tragic and his dream of making it big as a magician, both subplots were mildly funny.

The best part for us was watching Mind Mangler stumble through common sleight-of-hand. In one bit an audience member is asked questions, like writing down a number, or a color. Mind Mangler’s on-stage assistant coughs the number of times indicated or changes hats to the color selected.

Mind Mangler – A Night of Tragic Illusion, was fun (especially since we were not selected as an audience participant). It was pure entertainment, comedy with a side of high-quality stage magic delivered with an English accent.

Laughter is the Best

Sometimes it’s good to laugh. Mischief Theatre’s performances gave us a chance to become children again. For the duration of the shows, we were able to relax and recharge. Silliness and slapstick humor are central to The Play That Goes Wrong and Mind Manger – A Night of Tragic Illusion.

We look forward to Mischief Theater’s next iteration of comedy (since their shows are limited engagements).

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Two Sues on the Aisle bases its ratings on how many challahs (1-5) it pays to buy (rather than make) to see the play, show, film, book, or exhibit being reviewed. 

The Play That Goes Wrong and Mind Manger – A Night of Tragic Illusion received a 4 challah rating