The Play That Goes Wrong took the West End by storm and is currently on its third major UK tour – with Huddersfield’s Gabriel Paul playing one of the pivotal roles.
A slapstick farce, with split-second timing and clever wordplay, it’s now Broadway’s longest-running play. The present tour of more than 300 shows takes in 37 venues, including one on home territory for the West Yorkshire actor.
Gabriel (real name Paul Gabriel), a former Newsome High School student, got his first break into the world of showbusiness when his mum saw an advert for a BBC new talent audition on a packet of Persil washing powder.
Back in 2002, the teenager became one of just 30 budding young actors chosen from among 10,000 hopefuls at the audition. As well as getting the chance to play a part in an afternoon television drama Paul says the audition gave him the confidence to consider acting as a career.
Today, aged 36, he’s an established actor, with a host of theatre, film and television credits to his name, but there was a time when he wasn’t sure if he wanted to act. He explained: “I’ve always been a bit of an extrovert and enjoying entertaining people. But for a while after I left school I wasn’t sure if acting was a path that could generate work. I didn’t know anybody who did anything like it.” He’s the only member of his family to opt for the stage.
But success in the BBC audition to find new talent persuaded him to try. After sixth form college he studied at the Birmingham School of Acting, graduating in 2008.
Gabriel has since lived Manchester, although he now calls Huddersfield home once more, and says he sees himself as a Northern actor. He’s appeared at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, had a role in a production for BBC Drama North, been featured in the BBC’s Doctors and is about to be seen in the new Netflix drama SAFE.
The Play That Goes Wrong is his first major tour and in the production he plays the part of Trevor Watson, a sound technician for the Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society, which is putting on a 1920s murder mystery. It’s a play within a play and, as the title suggests, what can go wrong does go wrong – to hilarious effect.
Trevor is the first cast member to appear before the audience and, as Gabriel, has discovered, not everyone cottons on to the fact that he’s acting or that the play has begun. “It’s an audience interactive role,” he says, “and I wonder how many people think I’m being serious.”
The play opened in January and is currently half way through the UK tour. It can be seen at the Alhambra Theatre in Bradford from June 18 to 23 and then will move to Manchester Opera House from June 25 to 30.
While Gabriel’s two brothers, Keith and Tim, have already seen him in his role as Trevor, the Alhambra run will be the first chance his mum Rosa has had to see him in the play. And she’s in for a treat. As Gabriel says: “It’s very well received and the laughter it generates is infectious. We have so many people who come to see it and then come back again.”
