When the Play Goes Wrong... and the Laughs Don’t Quite Land

If you’ve ever had a night on Broadway where you laughed until your stomach hurt… this wasn’t quite that night for me.

The Play That Goes Wrong is one of Broadway’s most hyped comedies, an Olivier Award-winning smash hit that promises a chaotic blend of Sherlock Holmes and Monty Python. The setup is gold: it's opening night of The Murder at Haversham Manor, and absolutely everything goes, yep, disastrously wrong. Falling props, collapsing sets, missed cues, unconscious actors, and a corpse who just won’t stay dead.

It sounds hilarious, and for a lot of people around me, it was. The audience roared with laughter from start to finish. Unfortunately, I wasn’t totally in on the joke.

Sure, some moments were genuinely funny, I mean, someone getting slammed by a door or an actor climbing through a broken window will always get a chuckle. But after a while, the mishaps felt more predictable than clever. I know that’s the point of the show (the absurdity, the repetition, the escalating chaos), but for me, it just didn’t hit as hard as I hoped.

For more than two hours, I had a few good laughs, especially early on, but found myself zoning out as the gags wore thin. It’s one of those shows where if slapstick is your thing, you’ll have the time of your life. But if you’re looking for smart twists or fresh takes? You might find it, well… going wrong in the wrong ways.

That said, I absolutely admire the physicality and timing the cast pulled off. There’s no denying the energy and precision it takes to make chaos look that perfectly timed. It just wasn’t quite my brand of humor, but clearly, I was in the minority. And hey, that’s the beauty of live theater: not every show is for everyone, and that's okay.

Would I recommend The Play That Goes Wrong to others? If you love physical comedy and over-the-top mishaps, absolutely. But if your comedy tastes lean more Only Murders in the Building and less Three Stooges, maybe keep this one in the “maybe” pile.