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Red Nose Day: My West End slapstick masterclass with The Play That Goes Wrong cast

Comic timing: the cast of The Play That Goes Wrong take the Standard’s Lizzie Edmonds through a slapstick scene: Alex Lentati
Comic timing: the cast of The Play That Goes Wrong take the Standard’s Lizzie Edmonds through a slapstick scene: Alex Lentati

The cast of hit West End comedy The Play That Goes Wrong today wished Londoners the best of luck in their Comic Relief fundraising efforts, while revealing their top tips to being funny.

For the past five weeks the Standard has called on Londoners to do something silly, such as host a sponsored stand-up or a jokeathon as part of our “Evening Stand Up campaign” to raise cash for Comic Relief. This year’s Red Nose Day takes place tomorrow.

Actor Oliver Llewellyn-Jenkins, 27, who stars with Drew Dillon and Adam Byron, said: “I would say to Londoners, ‘All the best!’ And if you are performing or getting on stage... break all the legs.”

The trio also imparted their wisdom during a slapstick masterclass, where I learned the basics of comic timing while pretending to be a corpse.

The show is about an amateur dramatics society who are putting on a Cluedo-style murder mystery play set in a manor house. However, everything that could possibly go wrong does.

I played the corpse of character Charles Havisham, lord of the manor, who is played by Llewellyn-Jenkins. In the scene actors Dillon, who plays Perkins the butler, and Byron, who plays Robert, a friend of Havisham, try to move the corpse off a chaise longue before tipping it off the chair and on to a stretcher. The stretcher then breaks when they attempt to move the body.

Playing the corpse was actually a challenge — it was tricky to keep a straight face, with Dillon tugging at my feet and Byron attempting to hurl my shoulders over the edge of the chaise longue, in front of cameras and theatre staff. It was a real kick hearing the audience laugh when the stretcher ripped around me, leaving me stranded on the floor.

​Llewellyn-Jenkins said: “The moment you try to be funny is the moment you will lose the audience. People don’t necessarily respond to people who think they are funny.

“Try to breathe. It happens so often that you forget to do that and your heart is racing and you cannot think straight. Don’t overthink it. You cannot guarantee what is going to get a laugh. Every audience is different. If you attempt to wait for a laugh and it doesn’t come you are left in a really awkward position.”

This year the cast of the Olivier award-winning show, which is about to open on Broadway, will have bucket collections to support Comic Relief.

Tune into the live Comic Relief TV show tomorrow from 7pm on BBC1.