The Goes Wrong Show

A joyful Christmas tale as the Cornley Drama Society present the story of Santa and his elves trying to bring festive happiness to a sad little girl and her constantly-fighting parents. Can the magical toy machine restore her Christmas cheer? Or perhaps Mr Snowman and his enchanting dance will raise her spirits? We'll never know, as an already surly Santa indulges in too much Christmas sherry and contrives to ruin everything. Crackers explode, an elf is trapped in a confined space for the duration of the show and the toy machine attempts to eat the snowman alive. Also, there are songs, and these don't go well.

This week the Cornley Drama Society have chosen to put on a Second World War drama, rarely performed because of its historical inaccuracy and poor research. Director Chris plays Rufus Heal, a dashing pilot reduced to a desk job solving German codes in a top secret Allied facility after losing his leg, assisted by uptight Englishwoman Valerie Sky and French codebreaker Camille, under the watchful eye of Wing Commander Wickham. They also find a part suitable for Dennis' dubious skills - a telegraph machine. Will they crack the code and unmask the spy in their midst in time to win the Vietnam war? Sadly for our gang, many disasters await - Rufus' ‘lost' leg won't behave itself, Camille's grasp of French is sub-par, Hitler spends more time on set than planned and Annie is forced to play the dastardly Wing Commander after Chris' father fails to show. And the telegraph machine takes on a life of its own.

A legal drama this week for our intrepid performers, with Dennis taking on a lead role due to a conversation with his grandmother that turned out to be legally binding. He plays unscrupulous defence lawyer Karl McKennon, taking on his ex-wife Becky as he defends an ex cop accused of murdering his brother. Cornley Dramatic Society's designers have excelled themselves, constructing a number of split sets that are wheeled in and out to create the locations described in the brutal cross examinations that take place in their meticulously recreated courtroom. Sadly, this turns out to be a terrible idea: sets are mismatched, wheeled off and on at life-threatening speeds and the courtroom itself is a quarter the size it should have been.

Our gang present a sixties-set horror this week, as the mysterious Albert Fortenoy welcomes a young family to his crumbling old house. What is the secret behind the death of Albert's late wife Vera? Who is the creepy vicar's daughter playing outside? A number of clever theatrical horror devices are used to create a creepy atmosphere and plenty of jump scares, and every single one manages to go horribly wrong. Worse, the designers have taken ‘crumbling' to heart and the cast contrive to fall off, out of and through everything. A stairlift develops a life-threatening mind of its own, a talking deer-head fails to understand its cues and entire rooms seem to go missing. Worse the play has been running short in rehearsals, and the only solution they can find involves adjectives…

This week the gang turn their attentions to a period romance, a classic tale of family, duty and love across the class divide. A beautiful set has been built to replicate a grand country home, soon to be rocked by a literal and metaphorical storm. Sadly, the literal storm involves a water effect that threatens to flood the set, though that's the least of their worries, as a horse turns out to be more of a danger to body parts than expected, gunshot effects occur seemingly at random and a ceiling fan threatens to decapitate a table of diners. Oh, and a cat gets stuck in a piano.

This week's show is a family saga of lust and betrayal set in the American Deep South, as the children of Herb Burgess, the head of Burgess Fine Tea, gather to plan the division of the business after their father's incipient demise. The show's title refers to the heat in Tennessee, but a designer error means that one of the sets has been built at a literal ninety degrees to the vertical. Too expensive to re-stage, our gang decide to turn the cameras on their side and pretend that everything's normal. Gravity, however, has other ideas, and when even getting in and out of chairs is potentially limb-threatening, you know things aren't going well. Unfortunately, the set in question also features food, drink, and a liaison that That's not the only problem, however, as a remote-controlled dog falls victim to a spat between Chris and Robert, rogue jack-in-a-boxes crop up on set and Herb's bedroom has somehow ended up upside down.