STAGE REVIEW: The Play That Goes Wrong - at the Festival Theatre, Malvern, from Monday, July 17 to Saturday, July 22, 2017.

A RIP-ROARING glorious romp of magnificent mayhem that was sheer joy from start to finish.

Here’s comedy and comedic timing at its very best from the Mischief Theatre company with their award winning comedy offering.

The only surprise, as envy leads to fights and collapsing props and scenery - that would have done Crossroads or Acorn Antiques proud, is that the cast aren’t sporting visible bumps and bruises, or plaster casts on injured limbs!

This is probably due to them having their performances down to a fine art, perfectly honed after seven months on the road around the UK and Ireland - just Plymouth and Canterbury to go and then they can take a really well earned summer vacation.

And boy, do they deserve it!

Once again the thespians of the Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society, who wowed audiences at Malvern a couple of years ago, prove how adept they are at making things go wrong and anything that could go wrong with their presentation of Murder at Haversham Manor does so to the nth degree.

There is absolutely no limit as a floor collapses, a lift blows up, lines are forgotten or repeated several times, whisky replaced by white spirit, important props get lost - cue improvisation of keys for a pen and a vase of flowers for a notebook for our bumbling police officer, Inspector Carter, wonderfully portrayed by the versatile Patrick Warner/Chris Bean - who also fulfils many roles behind the scenes for the Cornley society such as prop maker, designer, fight choreographer and director and more.

But it’s no one man or woman show for Cornley’s stars or the Mischief Theatre team. This is teamwork at its ultimate and all fully deserved the warm and rich applause at the end from an appreciative full house that had turned up knowing what to expect and which didn’t leave disappointed.

Fine moments too from Meg Mortell/Sandra Wilkinson’s Florence Collymore and Katie Bernstein/Annie Twilloil’s stage manager after the first Florence is knocked unconscious by a door. Stage fright gives way to dreams of a stage career and leads to an outstanding slapstick fight between the pair, which also paves the way for a third Florence, Graeme Rooney’s inattentive Glaswegian lighting and sound operator, Trevor Watson.

“No, please, do I have to kiss him?’ was Trevor’s plaintive plea in the closing moments, but Alastair Kirton/Max Bennett’s clumsy Cecil Haversham was up for it!

The first names are their actual stage names and unscrambling the real programme notes from the chaotic Cornley ones was good fun too.

A plot? Well there is one but it’s only a rough one of two murders that become one as hints of the wonderful Fawlty Towers float past. Nothing ‘fawlty’ here though, just genuine first class fun.

Here’s to Cornley’s next visit to these parts.