A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong

Mischief has smashed it out of the park with their new show featuring miscommunication, feuds over casting choices, and a theatre falling apart around them as the Cornly Amateur Dramatic Society attempts to tackle Dickens’ well-loved classic A Christmas Carol – slight problem though; the society only has five members and over thirty roles to fill!

Starting at the auditions, the audience is treated to the Cornley Amateur Dramatic Society's process when attempting to put on a new play in their local theatre with some hilarious call backs to events from previous productions such as Peter Pan Goes Wrong. We witness laborious production meetings, rushed rehearsals, and rising tensions as the members of the rather disastrous drama society attempt to put together a production of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

With Libby Todd’s wonderfully designed sets, precise blocking and their skilled comedic timing the team at Mischief demonstrate just why they are a multi-award winning company. The love for Jonathan Sayer’s Dennis is undeniable with the audience continuously rooting for him – much to ‘director’ Chris’ annoyance, as is the crowd’s pure unfettered glee upon the announcement “Robert’s here!”. There are myriad visual gags set-up in the first half, all of which paid off exceedingly well in the second, even after they had started to become predictable. Tiny Tim’s transformation from a wonderfully unnerving puppet to hilariously terrifying giant was especially well received by the audience, as was Trevor’s Scottish accent though this does make me wonder; does Trevor always request to play the ghost as a Scot, or does this change depending on where Mischief is on their tour?

Deviating slightly from their previous narrative set-up – that of a drama society putting on a show and it going wrong – A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong is not a ‘single event’ (that of the play they are performing) but more a peak-behind-the-curtain (we see both the build up to and the aftermath of the play the drama society performs). In doing this Mischief was able to play around with the set in a way that would never have made sense without that ‘backstage’ context however this one simple change to the narrative structure does mean that the ‘accidents’ can feal a lot less ‘real’ and consequential. Additionally some of the Cornley drama society’s mistakes come across more as a result of incompetence then inexperience and unfortunate accidents as they do in The Play that Goes Wrong. For example the set up and ultimate pay-off of ‘Tiny Tim’ is great, however it tears into the shows internal logic in that it means ‘Tiny Tim’ is never in rehearsals or flagged as missing in pre-show checks and company director Chris Bean – notoriously a control freak – either does not notice this or does notice but never questions it. It’s as a result of small things like this A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong doesn’t hold up under scrutiny quite as well as Mischief’s other ‘goes wrong’ shows do.

The Cornly Drama Society's production of A Christmas Carol is plagued by catastrophe, ultimately culminating in the on-stage melt-down of Chris Bean upending the whole moral tale Dickens wrote and leaving the rest of the society feeling rather guilty in their role in the whole thing. Luckily Chris is saved by the styrofoam inside a prop duck and able to return to the group having ostensibly had his own outlook on life changed and being welcomed back in a suitably Dickensian manor.

Side-splittingly hilarious A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong will have you in stitches well before the interval, with the second half coming at you twice as hard and with triple the amount of slap-stick.

Attended 15 February 2026
Festival Theatre
Edinburgh

“only when the weak have fallen will the lighting rig be strong”

Mischief Theatre Company:
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Writers:
Henry Lewis
Jonathan Sayer
Henry Shields

Director:
Matt DiCarlo

Set Design:
Libby Todd

Costume Design:
Roberto Surace

Cast:
Matt Cavendish
Daniel Fraser
Sasha Frost
Chris Leask
Henry Lewis
Jonathan Sayer
Greg Tannahill
Nancy Zamit
Dumile Sibanda

Understudies:
Alex Bird
Will Bishop
Siobhan Cha Cha
Colm Gleeson
Ashley Tucker

Promotional images taken from the Mischief website

P.S. If anyone from the Charles Dickens society is reading this – the Cornly Amateur Dramatic Society stuck rigorously and faithfully to the source material.