The Play That Goes Wrong goes so right
In an exclusive interview with Shows in London, legendary theatrical impresario Kenny Wax reveals that ‘The Play That Goes Wrong’ is his biggest commercial success to date.
Kenny Wax producer of The Play That Goes Wrong
Top producer Kenny Wax told Shows in London that his hit comedy The Play That Goes Wrong is his biggest commercial hit to date. And this surprise admission from a man who has a string of successful West End shows including musicals Top Hat, Maddie and The Witches of Eastwick starring Marti Pellow, classic plays such as Hobson’s Choice with John Savident and An Inspector Calls and an array of wonderful children’s shows including The Gruffalo, The Tiger Who Came to Tea and more recently Hettie Feather.
The Play That Goes Wrong has been a massive hit on the touring circuit, winning the What’sOnStage award for Best New Comedy. This hilarious comedy is now playing to packed audiences at London’s Duchess theatre in the heart of the West End.
Kenny fell in love with theatre at a very early age and after graduating with a business studies degree embarked on his dream of becoming a theatre producer from the very humble beginnings of theatre usher at the Prince Edward theatre. Kenny was keen to work for Cameron Mackintosh in order to learn the ropes but Cameron’s sound advice was that Kenny needed to learn all there is to know about theatre by working in a variety of roles. Kenny took Cameron’s advice to heart and thus embarked on his adventurous journey from usher, through staging, lighting and marketing before launching his first independent production, the musical Maddie in 1996.
Kenny says ‘after working a year at Dixon’s head office as part of my degree course made me realise I didn’t want to go in to retail. Musicals at the time in the era of Les Miserables, Phantom of the Opera and Me and My Girl were big shows and I thought they were wonderful and wouldn’t it be amazing if I could put on shows like these’. So Kenny fixed his sights on becoming a theatre producer and now runs a hugely successful theatre production company responsible for many of the shows on in London, including ‘The Play That Goes Wrong’ and a whole host of children’s shows such as ‘The Room on the Broom’.
Following his role as an usher, Kenny worked for a year and a half at Dewynters, the theatrical marketing agency, firstly as a simple messenger, long before the days of e-mail and the internet when he was delivering artwork and messages around the West End to the likes of Bill Kenwright and Prince Edward at Really Useful Theatres. This gave Kenny a real insight in to who was doing what in the West End and led to a full-time office position at Dewynters, it was here that he bumped in to a composer of a new musical called ‘Just So’ a show which he subsequently worked on, then followed various roles at the New London theatre on ‘Cats’ including spot operator, box office and tour guide.
Kenny’s next role was administrator at the King’s Head theatre which is where he started to produce a few Sunday night shows, his first being ‘Kicking the Clouds Away’, Kenny says ‘We did four Sunday nights I got such a thrill, I’m doing it now, I’m enjoying it, people are coming and loving the show and this gave me the impetus to realise I was doing the right thing’.
Although theatre production is such a risky business Kenny insists he is not a gambling man. Putting on shows is a huge gamble but Kenny is relaxed about his role as after many years of putting on successful productions it is with an experienced eye that he chooses his shows very carefully, and so far most of them have come up trumps.
Kenny has nine productions currently on, with many more in the pipeline for next year, including the return of ‘Hettie Feather’ and the follow up to The Play That Goes Wrong called Peter Pan Goes Wrong which is currently in rehearsal as well as ‘Three Little Pigs’.
Kenny reveals that the stress comes not from his own productions but when he is general managing shows on others behalf, such as Quadrophenia. Kenny is a real hands on producer and selects all of his titles with great care. ‘The common theme is entertainment, I get a huge buzz from seeing an audience laugh at a comedy like The Play That Goes Wrong or the warmth you get from Top Hat’ states Kenny, ‘I want to sit through the shows time and time again myself and be entertained’.
The Play That Goes Wrong was written by three young actors whilst at LAMDA and then they appeared with it at the Old Red Lion before going to the Trafalgar Studios in London where Kenny first saw the show, he stayed behind afterwards to meet the cast and give his advice ‘It was only a one act play, I thought we could tour the play, but I really liked the play and thought if it was a bit longer we could take it to the West End, I gave them a brief, they came back with some crazy ideas it was wonderful and it is now a two act comedy which is such great fun, every night people are crying with laughter in their seats – it’s like Fawlty Towers meets Noises Off, it’s got the absurdity of Fawlty Towers and the play within a play of Noises Off’.
Kenny himself embarked on what appeared a crazy idea himself with the marketing campaign for The Play That Goes Wrong making statements such as ‘save money don’t come’. Although not a risk taker it seems to me that this was a big gamble on Kenny’s part and we at Shows in London wondered if it might back fire and that Kenny would be left with custard pie on his face or indeed eating some humble pie. But far from it, Kenny admits ‘hand on heart, the truth is it’s word of mouth, we are sold out virtually every performance, which is incredible for a brand new play. We could have ended up with egg on our face from this campaign, and a lot of people advised against it but we just thought it was very funny, so we went ahead and it has worked and now we are in discussions to take it to Broadway which would be fantastic for the guys’
Tickets for The Play That Goes Wrong at the Duchess theatre are on sale now. Including fantastic deals for family tickets.
