It'll Be All Wrong On The Night

A salute to the real stars of theatre - your stage manager, stagehands, lighting and audio operator and your set designer and builders. Oh and you'll need a few actors as well. Four females and two or three males. It's a one-set sitting-room show. Wealthy family, two grown-up daughters, the boyfriend and the Spanish-speaking long-serving maid/cook/whatever.

Bit of drama. The boyfriend seems to be too keen and the daughters hate their step-mother. But when father has a road-rage incident and receives threatening phone calls, things start to hot up.

But they're also hotting up off-stage. Parts of the set don't quite work. Then the actor playing the boyfriend has throat problems. Come interval it's all change here for survival.

An unrehearsed stagehand steps in with script in hand. Have you ever tried playing a romantic scene with a book in one hand? A friend of a member of the cast takes over the sound and light controls and the drama descends [or is that ascends?] from drama to comedy to farce to bedlam. When doors jam and the offstage fire in the kitchen moves on stage, well, it's every actor for herself!!

Requires great timing and skill as the cast and the set disintegrate. World premiere in England a hit.