“The Comedy About A Bank Robbery” by Mischief Theatre Company
Nottingham Theatre Royal

This play is the third from the brilliantly funny team who created “The Play That Goes Wrong” and “Peter Pan Goes Wrong”, so for anyone who has seen both or either of these plays, they will know what to expect, and this company did not fail to deliver an incredibly funny and anarchic piece of theatre. It has been described as “Oceans Eleven” meet The Marx Brothers and I can see where this analogy comes from.

It is set in the Summer of 1958 in Minneapolis and the City Bank has been entrusted with a priceless diamond but an escaped convict has his heart set on making the diamond his own, with help from his girlfriend and the maintenance man, but as the title of the play states, it all goes wrong with hilarious consequences.

Not only will you find its’ basis steeped in slapstick and farce there’s also a nod to the comic wordplay of comic legends like The Two Ronnies, so this comic theatre productions works on all levels of visual and cerebral comedy, and of course the comic timing is utter perfection.

The cast are excellent, which goes to show that a night out at the theatre does not have to feature celebrity names to make for a great night out. They are so hard working, you can tell that by the time taken to make the play as entertaining and precise as it is.

This really is an ensemble piece and I can honestly say that I've not laughed so much at a piece of theatre as I did in this play.

Liam Jeavons, David Coomber, George Hannigan, Ashley Tucker, Damian Lynch, Jon Trenchard ( who stole the show for me as Warren Stax), Sean Carey, Julia Frith and Killian McCardle were all amazingly good, and I must also mention local actor Tom Hopcroft who makes his professional debut alongside Julia (Caprice) and George, who performed a brilliant piece of comic knockabout slapstick with wonderful timing with himself

The sets were really very very clever. There was one scene in Act Two which I originally thought may have been done with mirrors where it's as if the audience are looking down into a room from the ceiling, but this was no trick of the light or mirrors, just an ingenious set design that I have never seen used before in theatre. Jon and Damian defy gravity to provide a multitude of laughs in this section.David Farley the set designer is a genius.

There is also danger involved in another scene later on. Picture the Tom Cruise scene from "Mission Impossible" and that is what you have here when the robbery is taking place, but as the title of the play denotes, all does not go quite to plan.

Another scene which I thought was done incredibly well onstage was an underwater scene, which has to be seen to be believed, again all down to physical talents of these actors.

What also makes this scene special is the superb lighting design by David Howe.

The writers, Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer and Henry Shields have created yet another excellent and clever piece of comedy theatre. Along with their previous works, this one will go down as one of the best original comedy plays ever.

The physicality in the play merged with the script and the incredible cast make this show one of the best original comedies on tour

“The Comedy About A Bank Robbery” is at the Nottingham Theatre Royal until Saturday 29 September 2018.