INTERVIEW | Jonathan Sayer talks A Comedy About A Bank Robbery.

Mischief Theatre has had phenomenal sell-out success with their multi-award-winning comedy The Play That Goes Wrong and this time they're back on the road with their latest smash hit, The Comedy About A Bank Robbery which is now enjoying its third year in London's West End. It doesn't stop there for the company who have plenty more in the pipeline for the future with a new production of Magic Goes Wrong heading to London later in the year and a TV series! I really feel like 2019 will be a big year for this fantastic company and they really do deserve it! The Co-Writer and Mischief Theatre Company Director Jonathan Sayer has spoken to us about the excitement of this new UK Tour and more..

2019 marks the company's 10th anniversary year so where does their inspiration come from? Jonathan explains that "our main inspiration comes from our teachers who we trained with at LAMDA. Adam Meggido who runs the company responsible for Showstopper the Improvised Musical as an example, has been a huge inspiration for Mischief Theatre's beginning." However, Sayers' own inspiration style comes from "old silent movies; Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy and Buster Keaton." 

Mischief Theatre's work is largely comedy theatre and their influences on the style of theatre they produce have been "big physical slapstick comedy, tied in with traditional English humour. Fawlty Towers is the perfect example, stuff that really is about status and conflict. But then we try to add an anarchic twist." Other influences to their work include "The Marx brothers and Albert and Costello who use fast thinking, quick dialogue with a million jokes coming at you as thick and fast as possible."

Read more: The Play That Goes Wrong Review.

Their work is well received by audiences and works so well in these times. "I think people need to laugh a lot at the moment and I think we're really good at offering pure escapism," says Jonathan Sayer, "It's not political, it's not about anything other than being as funny as you possibly can be, minute by minute, and making people laugh." 

The inspiration behind their latest production The Comedy About A Bank Robbery which is currently touring around the UK and in London's West End has been "silent comedies, big physical comedy like Charlie Chaplin" Sayer explains, "A lot of that work started out in the theatre, in vaudeville and in the music hall, doing these big dangerous stunts and then they moved it onto the silent screen."

"And aside from the bigger conceptual ideas there are also (sadly) moments taken from our own lives. If we’re talking about The Play That Goes Wrong, I’ve definitely missed an entrance in a straight play before. I know that Henry Lewis, one of the writers, got stuck in a dog flap once and that comes up in Peter Pan Goes Wrong… there’s a whole list of embarrassing moments that happened to us in real life!"

Read more: Mischief Movie Night Review.

The Comedy About A Bank Robbery is now in its third year in the West End and hugely differs from their previous work because it's "not a 'play within a play'." The piece is a more traditional fourth wall play, but you can "still expect an incredibly high gag rate, huge stunts like the previous shows, all intertwined with Marx Brothers patter and also lovely singing and bits of acrobatics." Sayer states that this work is more "ambitious!" It does have a big storyline to it, "so you can really fall in love with the characters and follow their journey."

Sayer says that Mischief Theatre's ambitions are to continue "making people laugh."

Don't miss your opportunity to see A Comedy About A Bank Robbery at Curve Theatre between 26-30 March. You can find out more here.  

*Interview kindly provided by Curve Theatre for publication to the blog.