First of all I want to offer The Play That Goes Wrong my sincerest apologies. It’s currently playing at the Duchess Theatre in London for its 10th year and in those 10 years I’ve seen it advertised but thought “nah, it’s not for me”.

I’m so delighted to have been proven wrong.

My first clue that I’d massively misjudged it was when I arrived early at the theatre but the queue to get in was already down the street and around the corner. People were keen to get in and get sat down and once I’d taken my seat I could see why. Without giving too much away, the play begins before the play begins and from the very start the lines between what’s real and what’s staged are becoming blurry.

Eventually, the lights go down and we’re ready to officially begin.

It’s a play within a play. We’re watching an amateur production of a murder mystery set in a stately English home in a time period where men had moustaches like Basil Fawlty and women had wavy hair you could crack with a hammer. It’s your basic whodunit.

And then the mischief begins. Small things at first – doors that swing open and then stick shut, books that won’t open, props that going missing.

What’s lovely about this production is the cast reactions to each thing that goes wrong. It’s billed as a ‘master class of malfunction’, but the real skill comes from the performers who effortlessly guide the audience from one disaster to the next.

It’s a relatively small cast but each performer is big and brilliant. From the beginning you’re presented with a set of fully formed characters who really push the stereotypes, from the dashing Inspector called to investigate the murder to the quiet, bumbling butler.

It’s a comfortable format that’s easy to wrap your head around so you can spend less time analysing characters and more time roaring your head off at the fire that’s broken out on stage.

As the show unfolds, things get worse and there were points where I was sure they were going to put an end to the whole debacle but, with a resolute “stiff upper lip” attitude, the cast battle on. The level of calamity escalates and so does that laughter in the room. You’re left mesmerised by the joyful performances and rooting for the chaos to continue.

It’s worth noting how precise and perfectly timed each disaster on stage is. As much as it’s meant to look like a shambolic production, nothing is happening by accident and the timing is perfect. The cast place themselves around the stage to be ready for the next thing that goes wrong and there’s a dedicated team of backstage hands pulling strings and hitting buttons.

What could be dismissed as slapstick with easy jokes is actually a brilliantly pieced-together physical comedy with a witty and punchy script to match.

Vaguely through the laughter you’re aware there’s a murder mystery to solve but I’ll be honest there were times where that didn’t seem overly important. However, at the end, when the totally exhausted-looking cast gather on stage in the middle of the broken sets and props, we do get to discover the murderer.

There’s a feeling sometimes with murder mysteries that once you’ve seen it and know who the killer is you don’t need to see it again. But I would see this show again and again. With so many things going so very wrong, this play gets absolutely everything right. It was an absolute riot.

You can book tickets to see The Play That Goes Wrong at the Duchess Theatre here.

The theatre is in Catherine Street, just off The Strand and close to Somerset House. Covent Garden underground station is a five-minute walk away. The station is on the Piccadilly line between Holborn and Leicester Square.

Charing Cross is the nearest National Rail station. It is just a nine-minute walk from the theatre.