When Theatre Goes Wrong

Not really the show itself but I was at a performance of We Will Rock You once that was late starting then got cancelled at the interval because a pipe had burst somewhere outside so the theatre (apparently along with a few others) had no water for sprinklers/toilets/the bar/cast showers.

I was there on a trip with my youth club and we were given tickets for another performance. I've now seen We Will Rock You 3.5 times which is more than any other show, which I'm a bit ashamed of as I didn't even like it.

In Kinky Boots towards the end of the run, Oliver Thompsett, mid-song, shouted out, "it's no good, I can't do this!" and ran off stage. The girl playing Lauren ran after him, but the rest of the cast stayed put. Then an announcement came that there would be a short break. After five minutes or so, Oliver came back on stage, and they picked up exactly where they had left off, mid-song.

It turned out that Oliver had been suffering from a nasty cough and cold, and had to dash off as he could feel a full blown coughing fit coming on.

Since I'm reviving an old thread, I'll make it worth it while I'm here. One of my favourite things about seeing shows multiple times is noticing all the mistakes. I love nothing more than for something to go wrong (provided everyone is okay!), but these are my favouites:

- Madame Thenardier forgetting all the words to her verse in Master of the House on the first day of the new Les Mis cast several years ago. She tried a couple of times but couldn't get back into it and ended up completely breaking down with laughter and just going 'oh dear' while the music played on.
- Also in Les Mis, one of the barricades not moving aside at the start of the sewers scene. The ensemble member lying on the floor 'dead' hadn't realised anything was wrong, so Thenardier nudged him with his foot and told him to get up, then turned to the audience and went 'he's not really dead'
- The performance of Loot(? I think) at the Park Theatre(? I think) where one of the actors fainted about 10 minutes in. They sent us all out into the bar, then the show resumed about 20 minutes later - WITH THE SAME ACTOR. I've never had more respect for someone's dedication to 'the show must go on'

And the reason I went looking for this thread:
- One of the actors in Operation Mincemeat screwed up one of her lines last night, very obviously corrected herself and just added 'that's how the joke works'. All of the cast was laughing while the two people in the scene made up some dialogue to get them back to where they were supposed to be, and when they came on to sing the next verse, they were struggling to compose themselves.

Live theatre. There's really nothing like it.

I've seen a lot of things back in the days when I actually used to work in theatres, but as an audience member, the only thing I can think of are a few obvious line flubs and a preview of Gypsy in 2015 where after an unusually long interval the company manager came on stage to announce that an automated set piece (Gypsy's dressing room from near the end of the show) wasn't working and so would have to be manually pushed on and off by stagehands during that particular scene.

The cast carried on as normal and a few crew members in black just ran on and slowly pushed it back out of the way.

I did have a friend who was at 2:22 at the Noel Coward recently, who told me that during one scene, an announcement was made by stage door regarding a delivery, obviously intended for backstage, but it came through the auditorium speakers. That's a bit of a clanger!

I've had a few. The biggest and most unexpected was being at the preview of Groundhog Day in New York when Andy Karl fell and injured his leg. It was in the second part of act 2 during a particularly intense dance/revolve routine and it looked as though he slid offstage as part of the number. It turned out this wasn't supposed to happen as the action quickly stopped and an announcement was made for a doctor to go backstage. There was a show stop of around half an hour then Karl came back on to finish the show! He used a stick (looked like a prop or part of the set) to balance then posted a picture from A&E straight after the show!

When I went to see I Can't Sing, the ridiculous revolve in Act 2 kept breaking down and Nigel Harmon (as Simon Cowell) did a King's job improvising around it.

At the Other Palace's production of Falsettos back in October 2019, the FOH announced that there would be a delay to Act 2. It later transpired that one of the four actors had taken ill and, with the standby already on, they had to convince Joel Montague, who was not performing that night, to come in to finish the show so the standby could take over from the actor who had taken ill. All handled it very well but Montague had a face like thunder at the curtain call.

I remember when I saw Network they added a spontaneous interval because someone in the stalls needed medical attention. One of the actresses noticed from the stage and told everyone they needed to stop the show. Then later, when they film live outside, there was just an ambulance in the background of the shot.

During a local production of Home, I'm Darling a few months back, the scene where the husband storms out slamming the door after him was followed by the crashing of glass and a 20 minute stop.
We never did find out exactly what broke but I can only assume the actor playing the husband doesn't know his own strength! ( he's quite burly - think Tongan rugby player burly! )

Gosh there were four Theatreboarders at that show! Two of us managed to meet up in the show stop...
theatreboard.co.uk/post/145453/thread

A few weeks ago at Hairspray, when Link is visiting Tracy in the slammer, the door to her "cell" swung open when it wasn't supposed to. Luke (understudy) kept going and pushed the door shut. The joke about the shape of the door when it finally opens as intended, was lost a bit, but well done for keeping the scene going!

In Love Story at the Duchess in the cooking pasta scene, Emma Williams or Michael Xavier (I forget which) managed to knock the entire pan of pasta (which they actually used to cook on stage in the song) off the hob onto the stage floor. Both of them just looked at each other and had no idea what to do...

I forget the opera, but Natalie Dessay knocked an ink pot off the desk onto the giant white rug, where it slowly spread for the rest of the act. You do wonder why the ink pot needed actually ink.

I also saw Priscilla (the bus) break down once, but I think that was a reasonably common thing to happen.

In all my years working in theatre back in the day in the West End, I never saw a show actually stop for an audience member being ill. So I'm quite surprised by how often it has popped up in this thread! Especially since... illness in the audience happens quite often! We were constantly dealing with all sorts of medical emergencies but stopping a show for it nowadays is very rare. You'd be surprised how many people faint or take ill at the theatre. If we stopped the show every time we'd have been doing it several times a week, especially during hot weather!