Jonathan Sayer, Henry Shields and Henry Lewis at the Olivier Awards 2015 with Mastercard

Guest Blog: 5 things you might not know about Mischief

First Published 16 April 2020, Last Updated 25 February 2021

You might have split your sides at The Play That Goes Wrong, A Comedy About A Bank Robbery, Magic Goes Wrong or many other of Mischief Theatre’s hilarious and disaster-filled comedies, but how much do you know about their history?

Last year, Dave Hearn from Mischief wrote an article for us packed with little tidbits you probably never knew about the Olivier Award-winning Mischief gang!

1. Our main colours used to be yellow & black

We are currently going through a change in branding, trying to figure out what it means to be in Mischief and how best to represent that, but back in the day we had a whole host of different looks.

From all in black ‘with a dash of colour’ (individual to the actor, Henry Lewis wore a splash of red, Charlie Russell purple for example) to a uniform yellow and black. We thought it made us look slick and professional. Maybe it did?

2. One member of our team is a certified doctor

That’s right folks, the one and only Dr. Joshua Elliott is a fully qualified doctor as well as a brilliant actor and a very gifted musician. Follow him on Twitter @DrJoshuaElliott for some excellent medical posts.

3. We played Edinburgh 8 years in a row

We started with a show called ‘Let’s See What Happens’. And what happened was…it was very poor, but we had a lot of fun. One year we performed in a prison for some inmates and even performed on ‘The Pink Bus’ which was an actual double decker bus. These slots were booked for 9am, we did not enjoy these gigs.

4. We once performed The Play That Goes Wrong outdoors in Barbados

Yeah, you read that right, before we booked the first UK tour of The Play That Goes Wrong, we had arranged to go to Barbados to perform for a large outdoor party. They built the set out there and we had one night of tech. We had to relearn an old version because the set was so different and we had buckets of ice off stage because it was so hot!

There was also a lot of sunburn…

5. Mischief World Wide

Our shows are all over the world in many different countries, which is really cool. I’ve seen a Hungarian and French version of Play, I know the writers have seen Norwegian and Russian versions of The Play That Goes Wrong and A Comedy About A Bank Robbery. The number of performances of any Mischief show in English ever in the world is currently 7,755!

 

Whether you’re a huge fan of the Mischief team and want to book one of their epic comedy shows ready for when theatres reopen, or you want to know a little more about the legendary The Play That Goes Wrong, check out the trailer below and click the button below! You can also check out  what the characters from The Play That Goes Wrong have been up to during lockdown, and what’s been going wrong in our exclusive Behind The Curtain episode right here. We promise you, there’ll be plenty of laughs!

Tagged:
A Comedy About A Bank Robbery Magic Goes Wrong mischief theatre the play that goes wrong

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