OUTSTANDING is not normally a word I would so recklessly throw about in a theatre review, but when talking about The Play That Goes Wrong, it is a necessity.

Having won a string of awards since it opened in 2014, including the Olivier Award for best new comedy, I knew I would be in for a treat, but I have to say it has been a long time since I have laughed as much as I did for the The Mischief Theatre production.

The show’s premise, a touring 1920’s murder mystery production from the Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society is genius, with everyone on stage a character playing another character. So much effort goes into that dual-layer, with the personalities of the actors really shining through the characters they are ‘attempting’ (used very liberally) to portray.

Even before the show actually starts, the laughs begin with the ‘stage crew’ already needing to firefight last-minute problems with the help of the audience as they take their seats, and if you grab a copy of the programme, you’ll get plenty of laughs, with everything you ever wanted to know about the most haphazard theatre group in the world.

‘Mistakes’ start early with the murder victim being repeatedly stepped on and, as the show goes on, the momentum builds with calamity after calamity, to the point where a full scale riot breaks out on the stage, and yet throughout all the chaos, you can tell the show is running flawlessly.

It is hard through all this to pinpoint any standout performances as the cast work so brilliantly together - whether it is (stay with me here) Jake Curran’s Chris Bean’s Inspector Carter and Kazeem Tosin Amore’s Robert Grove’s Thomas Colleymoore cowering on a collapsing elevated stage, or pretty much the entire cast trying to follow the scripted ‘episode’ of Florence Colleymoore (played by Sandra Wilkinson…played by Elena Valentine) after she is inadvertently knocked out by an opening door.

For a production that advertises its purpose is to go wrong, it is incredible how it goes so right. If you enjoy a comedy, go and see this outstanding piece of theatre, you won’t regret it!

The Play That Goes Wrong is at the Bristol Hippodrome until Saturday, July 21. Tickets from atgtickets.com/bristol.