The year is 2013. A group of relative newcomers on the London comedy scene are garnering something of a feverish buzz for their new am-dram farce, and its’ recent migration from above-bar theatre to trendy, central Trafalgar Studios suggests they’re players on the up.

“In the more immediate confines of Trafalgar Studios studio two, the amateur dramatics facade plays out perfectly – it would be difficult to not envisage some of the immediacy and indeed warmth of The Play That Goes Wrong being lost in a more sizeable venue or auditorium.”

Words this particular writer offered when a visit to this new playground of, well, mischief, more than lived up to the hype.

Fast-forward just shy of a decade, and by way of Royal Variety Performances, TV specials, West End and indeed even Broadway transfers, nation-wide tours and much more, the explosion of Mischief Comedy has continued its stratospheric ascent. And yet, throughout it all, that one Damoclesean blade of potential overreach has hung cautiously over every new ‘variant’ of Mischief madness that audiences have been granted.

The everyday, commonplace schadenfreude of Play posited its chaos within the context of a fairly low-budget community theatre production, where everything from line readings to prop mixups courted disaster. As it became extrapolated out into a fuller, two-act beast on larger stages and within grander venues, the creatives nevertheless managed to keep a stranglehold on ensuring the silliness and buffoonery stayed grounded and relatable. Even as recently as this month, when reviewing Play’s current UK tour, we noted: “Like Mischief as a whole, it has grown and developed into something even bigger, bolder and funnier still, whilst never losing sight of the inherent silliness and relatability.”

A long road taken to arrive at Magic Goes Wrong, then?

Perhaps, but in truth it’s relevant precisely because Magic, whilst a perfectly solid and entertaining offering of its own accord, trips itself up exactly where Play has managed to dodge those same pitfalls of pitching the unique brand of Mischief humour too broad, too big.

Too… wrong?

In place of am-dram humdrummery is the glitz and spectacle of the light entertainment world. Where Play houses ‘The Murder at Haversham Manor’ as its play-within-a-play mcguffin, here, the cast of Magic Goes Wrong are staging the ‘Disaster In Magic Fundraiser’ charity bonanza.

From the off, Magic and its fundraiser ‘event’ look incredible (indeed, you could possibly argue too incredible). The bigger budget that Mischief’s success has afforded them, and the world of show business they seek to satirise here (all sequins, sparkles and shine), coalesce into a show that is routinely dazzling from a technical and aesthetic perspective throughout. Designers David Howe, Will Bowen, Paul Groothuis and Duncan McLean inject a decidedly parodic, tongue-in-cheek nature across the show’s entire audio-visual design. See, for instance, psychedelic video, lighting and sound work done to accompany Rory Fairbairn’s Derren Brown-esque (a purposeful name check) ‘Mind Mangler’, the sporadic silliness of messages forming from malfunctioning bulbs on the show’s main set, through to the more overt spectacle of bigger set pieces such as an Ancient Egyptian switcheroo.

And let’s not forget industry stalwarts Penn and Teller, veterans themselves of the bleakly comic school of magical comedy, who co-wrote and devised the show alongside the Mischief regulars.

It’s all a tremendous amount of fizz, polish and promise nonetheless circling the same core fault line of Magic Goes Wrong; namely that whilst it looks, sounds and pitches itself as fantastic, in the end, in terms of both its comedy and its illusionary spectacles and set pieces, it doesn’t quite manage to ‘wow’ to the same extent.

There are moments of conceptual greatness peppered throughout – glimpses of what Magic could (should?) have been. Keenly observed double and then triple bluffs, where a trick or illusion is set up, goes humorously wrong, but then, in its failure or collapse, the creatives pull the rug from beneath the audience and go on to impress or surprise with a slight of hand or even more visually arresting spot of trickery.

“Fairbairn is a standout, as his perennially underperforming ‘Mind Mangler’ gets some of the biggest laughs with notably less showy and decidedly more tried-and-true comedy stylings”

There’s solid character work and comedy talent at play here, too. The aforementioned Fairbairn is a standout, as his perennially underperforming ‘Mind Mangler’ gets some of the biggest laughs with notably less showy and decidedly more tried-and-true comedy stylings. Similarly, Sam Hill is a wonderfully animated and characterful compere – something of a (welcome) Mischief trope as the exasperated MC – who again mines some of the best humour from the less showy and more Earthy moments – see, for instance, a disastrously tanking running total that seems plucked from a Children in Need presenter’s worst nightmare. Elsewhere, Jocelyn Pray and Chloe Tannenbaum strut, slink and wheel (sometimes quite literally!) their way across stage and, again, are the most fun when simply cracking barely comprehensible jokes about German municipal buildings or allowing the seething animosity between them to bubble to the surface.

Sure, some of the grander moments of magic and spectacle briefly tickle the funny bone – the crescendo to an unfortunate levitation trick lands perfectly and uproariously, and the act I closer, whilst obvious from a mile off, is gruesomely satisfying and anarchic. Some of the production quirks resonate strongly, too – there’s the running fundraising total mentioned before, and a devilishly funny ‘in memoriam’ satire briefly tickles. But for every moment where a bullet-catching trick is pitched perfectly in terms of length and execution, there’s a prolonged underwater escape gag that drags on for far too long (despite that kind of being the point), or, perhaps worse, a number of set pieces and visual gags that don’t bother trying to deliver a punchline at all.

Other slight missteps, including an over-reliance on obvious stooges without any genuine or meaningful audience participation, and a wholly unnecessary inclusion of a small handful of subplots and character ‘arcs’ that feel completely tacked on, all contribute to the feeling that Magic Goes Wrong is a trick in need of some refinement.

“Irrespective of its faults, there’s no denying the calibre of talent on display on stage.”

Irrespective of its faults, though, there’s no denying the calibre of talent on display on stage. The entire cast and company are terrific, and the same praise levied at any ‘Goes Wrong’ offering – that it takes a lot of talent, precision and practice to execute this calibre of mayhem – stands here. It’s just a shame that, on such a big, bold and showy canvas, so much of the nuance and simplicity of what makes its predecessors work so well gets lost here. Getting hit by, say, the end of a broom or ladder struggles to land or even register in such a showy, overtly razzle-dazzle environ.

So has the Mischief magic gone wrong, or simply even… gone? Not entirely. Whilst it’s true that Magic Goes Wrong is fairly middling as both a farcical comedy and, perhaps most disappointingly given some of the names attached, as a foray into the world of magic and illusions, it’s worth bearing that much of this is under the weight of expectation set by those very same names, and by the glimpses of promise that do pop up throughout. It’s difficult, given past form, to not expect tauter pacing and more satisfying payoff from Mischief, and even some forty years ago Penn and Teller were pulling off stage gags and set pieces with more invention and scope than much of what is seen here.

You’ll likely find yourself tittering and giggling a lot throughout Magic Goes Wrong, and there’s certainly enough character-driven humour and silliness to buttress some of the more drawn-out or underwhelming chunks. And yet, whilst perennial favourite The Play That Goes Wrong, as well as more original and recent fare such as Groan Ups, have shown that Mischief have been mostly able to expand and enjoy their boom from newcomers to de facto industry leaders in the area of subversive, farcical comedy relatively unscathed, Magic would represent, it seems, a rare sidestep where these maestros may have bitten off a little more showbiz spectacle and spark than their usually down-to-Earth, hilarious hijinks can quite as successfully stomach.

Plenty of mischief, but very little magic.