A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong is a comedy play, based on Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. And as you might have guessed – the performance of it goes wrong! Here’s my A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong theatre review.
Overview and Plot Synopsis of A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong
A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong is a fun stage comedy by Mischief Theatre that parodies the classic Dickens tale through the lens of theatrical disaster. It follows the fictional Cornley Amateur Drama Society as they attempt to stage A Christmas Carol. This play is part of the “Goes Wrong” series, along with The Play That Goes Wrong and Peter Pan Goes Wrong. Like these other plays, A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong follows the themes of slapstick humour and theatrical mayhem. My A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong theatre review will talk about the show – so there will be some spoilers of the plot as well as some of the jokes in the show.
The opening scenes of A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong
A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong starts with auditions for the roles of the key characters in the show. The lead of the Drama Society, the Director, is taking the auditions process seriously. We see a range of amateur actors audition, each in their own amusing way. From the outset, the play is amusing. There’s the overly emotional actress at the auditions, and the actor who can’t remember any lines. One actor auditions for Scrooge, but the Director decides to take that role for himself. This then becomes a running theme throughout the show – with both performers vying for the role of Scrooge throughout the show. And the opening scene also had one of my favourite lines in all the show: ‘The ghost of Christmas who’s about to come’.
The next scene shows one of the production meetings for the show. Again, the Director is the one trying to keep everything together through the chaos of the meeting. A stage light falls down from the rigging during their meeting, straight onto the model of the set that the Director has made. The other cast quickly try to repair the model, using items they have lying around. This includes a Maltesers box and a Barbie kitchen. The model is then sent off to the builders – so the audience has a hint of what will happen in the real show.
The performance of A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong – Act One
We’re then ready to see the performance of A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong. As with the other plays by Mischief Theatre, the performance quickly doesn’t go to plan.
We see the mishap of the set design in full size. There’s a giant box of Maltesers in Scrooge’s office in place of a cabinet, complete with giant sized Maltesers which roll out across the stage when the ‘cabinet’ is opened.
The bags of coins and fake snow get mixed up. So the actors are trying to pay people with handfuls of snow, and it starts raining coins on them. The actor who only got the part of Scrooge’s clerk just has one line to say ‘yes’, but he keeps trying to take the role of Scrooge that he wanted all along. He keeps trying to sabotage the play so he can take the Scrooge role, including trying to tie up Scrooge and come on in his place.
Jacob Marley’s ghost comes on stage in chains. He gets the chains caught up in an armchair in Scrooge’s bedroom. Then a backstage tech comes on to try to help, but he ends up getting caught up in the chains as well. And then they all get caught up in the bed. There’s some clever dialogue where Jacob Marley adapts his lines so he talks about how he stole a chair in past life, to try to cover up the mishaps on stage. But then then narrator says Scrooge went back to bed. So Scrooge has to curl up on the floor because Jacob has dragged bed off stage in his chains.
The first act ends with all the actors falling over the Maltesers, and then the stage curtain comes down – but instead of the actual stage curtain, it’s actually the CV of the actor who was desperate to play Scrooge, because he’d put his CV in the model of the stage to be built.
A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong – Act Two
Act Two continues with the same slapstick comedy, where things constantly go wrong for the performers. We see the Barbie kitchen on the set. The model says random Barbie-related lines when the fridge or cupboards are opened. And then one of the actors presses a button on it and it starts playing music – all while the actors are trying to keep their production of A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong going.
The role of ‘Tiny Tim’ is played by a puppet. In the production meetings, we see the puppet. It’s a creepy doll owned by the Director. It’s just a normal size puppet. But obviously huge in comparison to the model of the stage set that was built. And so in the performance, it’s been made into a huge, scary creature that takes up most of the stage.
The Ghost of Christmas Future comes on stage in a scary costume, and keeps losing his scary hands. There’s an amusing gag throughout the show that the actor want to play the role Scottish – even though the ghost doesn’t have a single line.
The ending of A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong
The ending of their performance of A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong is a bit different to the famous story we all know. There’s an actor who, throughout the whole performance, can’t remember any of his lines. So he has to have them written on various things around the stage so he can read them. Towards the end of the show, he ends up accidentally reading out loud the minutes from secret production meetings that took place without the Director. So the Director, who is playing Scrooge, is hurt. His character of Scrooge had just turned happy at the end of the show. But he quickly turns sour again. And then the scary Tiny Tim puppet eats him.
The final scene of the play shows all the actors clearing up after the show. They talk about what went well, and also what went wrong – a much longer list! But they do all come together as friends again at the end, in the spirit of A Christmas Carol.
What I liked about A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong
I enjoyed A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong. Like the other plays by Mischief Comedy, it’s a fun play. The style of humour is light-hearted and fairly innocent. There are lots of slapstick jokes, things falling over or off the stage, and general mishaps. It’s an enjoyable evening, with a lot of laugh-out-loud moments, and even more mildly amusing moments. There is some mild innuendo, but it’s much more a pantomime, slapstick comedy style.
The foreshadowing of the jokes about the things that go wrong with the set design work well. The audience knows the Maltesers box and Barbie kitchen are coming, but it’s really funny when it does happen. Especially when they say to open the ‘cabinet’, and the Maltesers roll out across the stage. It’s the same with the snow and the coins – the audience knows the mix up has happened, but it’s still funny when it happened.
When things actually went wrong
There was an amusing incident in the production I saw – where things actually did go wrong. Towards the end of the first half, a backstage tech came on staying they needed to pause the show to fix things. They actually made it feel like that was meant to happen. I thought it was a slightly underwhelming end to the first half, but I accepted it and happily had a 10-15 minute interval. But then, everyone came back on stage and performed for another 10 minutes – and then we had the actual end of the first half, and the actual interval.
It was funny how the actors referenced the extra interval at the end of the show, when they were discussing what went wrong. It clearly wasn’t scripted to have had the extra interval, so it was clever and funny how the actors added in some extra lines to reference it. They joked about how the audience never notices when things go wrong on stage – and some might not have noticed that we had an extra interval. It was funny because at first, I didn’t really realise it was a mistake to have that extra interval – I thought that was just how the first half was going to end!
What I wasn’t so sure about
Overall, I did enjoy A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong. It’s a fun play, and a fun evening. But I don’t think I was uncontrollably laughing throughout the play.
I first saw The Play That Goes Wrong several years ago, and I loved it. In that show, I was definitely laughing out loud throughout the show. But this show didn’t have quite the same impact for me. It was the same for Peter Pan Goes Wrong. I enjoyed that show, but I didn’t love, it, and I wasn’t laughing out loud for too much of that one either. It might just be that Mischief Comedy’s original play is the best. Or maybe it’s just this style of humour, that ends up being quite similar in all the different plays. Maybe this style of humour is most funny the first time you see it, but after seeing it a few times, the novelty wears off. Inevitably, the jokes and things that go wrong on stage end up feeling just a bit same-y.
The ending of A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong also felt a bit underwhelming compared to Peter Pan Goes Wrong. In the Peter Pan show, there’s a lot of flying around the stage and a dramatic ending where everything falls apart. But in A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong, the ending is quite quick and not as dramatic.
Would I recommend A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong
Overall, my A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong theatre review is positive. So I would recommend going to see A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong. If you enjoy slapstick comedy and pantomime style humour, then this show is definitely a good show to watch. Even though I didn’t enjoy it as much as their original production, it was still an enjoyable evening out. The whole show is nicely amusing. And I’d still happily go to see a 4th show of theirs when the next one comes out.
Hope you enjoyed my A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong theatre review! Check out my other theatre reviews for more shows in the West End, across the UK and the world.
