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The One Act Play That Goes Wrong writing team of Jonathan Sayer, Henry Lewis and Henry Shields first met at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. In 2012, after attending LAMDA, they were housemates living in a small flat in West London and began writing The Play That Goes Wrong, the very first play they wrote together.

Jonathan Sayer, Olivier award-winning playwright, is a British writer, actor, producer, and founder and company director of Mischief Theatre Company. His works have been performed internationally in 49 territories, including Broadway and London’s West End. He has taught improvisation at LAMDA, Mountview, and Cambridge School of Visual and Performing Arts. Jonathan was also a footballer, playing his only competitive game for AFC Stanley Tigers U13s in the ’90s. He wrote the book Nowhere to Run which is a semi-fiction, heart warming story about his life as a semi-professional football club chairman.

We invite people to laugh at us as opposed to laugh with us. – Jonathan Sayer

Henry Lewis is a British actor, playwright and co-founder of Mischief Theatre Company. His television career began in 2015 as Robert Grove in Royal Variety Performance, a variety show held annually in the United Kingdom to raise money for the Royal Variety Charity (of which King Charles III is a life-patron). He is currently co-host of Riddiculous, a British daytime game show which aired on ITV in October 2022. He is joined by co-host Ranvir Singh and stars as “The Riddlemaster”. The show features contestants answering general knowledge questions before facing riddles from Henry Lewis.

Henry Shields, an English playwright and actor, grew up in Hastings where his family still resides. He initially studied nursing at university but dropped out after a year. He auditioned and was accepted for drama school at LAMDA. Shields is best known for starring in the plays The Play That Goes Wrong, Peter Pan Goes Wrong, and The Comedy About a Bank Robbery, which he co-wrote along with Henry Lewis and Jonathan Sayer. He also co-wrote and starred in the television adaptation of The Goes Wrong Show. He has been nominated for three Olivier Awards for Best New Comedy, winning in 2015 for The Play That Goes Wrong.

The One Act Play That Goes Wrong is a condensed version of the Olivier Award-winning, international smash hit The Play That Goes Wrong, which has been hailed as “The funniest play Broadway has ever seen!”  The writing team worked different jobs by day, came home in the evenings and started writing together. The play was originally written as one-act that lasted about 60 minutes. Even though the play’s content is compressed, it retains and delivers a comedic and hilarious experience for audiences. 

Content Warning: This mystery contains references to murder and self-harm, gun shots, flame and smoke effects, strong language, simulated violence and generalized chaos. Oh, and someone may be used as a human puppet.

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