Everybody’s hot for Mischief’s new action-packed thriller THE COMEDY ABOUT SPIES, gripping audiences with laughter from April 2025 at the Noël Coward Theatre. The multi award-winning team behind The Play That Goes Wrong and The Comedy About a Bank Robbery step into 1960s London in this hilarious spy caper full of misunderstanding, miscommunication, and mistaken identity.
A rogue British agent steals plans for a top-secret new weapon. Spies from the CIA and the KGB assemble at London’s Piccadilly Hotel to track down the British mole and obtain the file. When a young British couple and an older actor auditioning for the title role in the first James Bond film check into the hotel, the stakes reach boiling point in this riotous world of Cold War farce.
__Assisted Performances:__
Audio Described - 6 June, 7:30pm
Captioned - 15 August, 2:30pm
BSL - 22 June, 2:30pm
What could easily have come off the rails is majestically held together by Matt DiCarlo’s razor-sharp direction. Lines snap with a military precision, the action sequences have a real zip about them and the most tender scenes draw genuine emotion. The finale to act one is a series of farcical decisions and mistakes which somehow coalesce into a masterpiece of co-ordinated chaos; to paraphrase Sir Terry Pratchett, this show’s most memorable sequences only happen because a large number of things amazingly fail to go wrong.
Mischief’s artistic director, Lewis co-wrote the script with Wright, and there are many of their fellow founders – who all studied together at LAMDA – and trusted regulars from previous shows in the cast. Dave Hearn’s elastic Lance, Chris Leask’s strangulated Sergei and Greg Tannahill’s fey hotel manager all delight – Tannahill also choreographs the fights. Nancy Zamit and Charlie Russell bring coarser grain to the roles of Lance’s mother Janet and Sergei’s eye-rolling partner Elena. James, a newcomer to the Mischief fold, plays it admirably straight as Rosemary. Director Matt DiCarlo keeps the pace up and David Farley’s simple set nicely recalls the backdrops of 1960s animations.
| 2025 | West End |
West End |
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