Happy-Go-Wrong

THE THEATRE SHOW THAT ACCIDENTALLY SAVED A LIFE

Powerhouse performer Andi Snelling is in the fight of her life.
Little does she know, she is about to orchestrate her own rescue
and return to the stage with a second chance at life.

NEXT SEASON: Wed 25th - Sun 29th June 2025
at fortyfivedownstairs, 45 Flinders Lane, Melbourne
Tix & info: https://fortyfivedownstairs.com/event/happy-go-wrong/

Based on the true story of a life-changing tick bite, Happy-Go-Wrong is a visceral physical theatre odyssey that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit and preciousness of life. Showcasing Snelling’s unstoppable no-holds-barred performance style, this rollercoaster show aligns the personal with the universal, and makes visible the invisible experience of chronic illness like you’ve never seen before.

With unflinching rawness, gut-punching comedy and a heavenly twist, Happy-Go-Wrong blends clowning, poetic existentialism, otherworldly movement and rollerskating with a spellbinding brown paper set that moves with Andi in striking visual metaphor.

In a remarkable parallel journey to Andi’s own recovery from Lyme disease, Happy-Go-Wrong truly is the little show that could. Since its humble beginnings at Melbourne Fringe 2019, it has garnered five awards, countless standing ovations, 5-star reviews, and toured main stages across Australia. Now in its eighth season, this “highlight of the year” (The Age) returns to Melbourne for one very special homecoming that is not to be missed.

Awards & Nominations 
Winner - The Advertiser’s Best Theatre of Adelaide Fringe Festival 2021
Winner - Adelaide Critics’ Circle Weekly Award, Adelaide Fringe 2021
Winner - Best Theatre Weekly Award, Adelaide Fringe 2021
Winner – SA Tour Ready Award, Melbourne Fringe 2019
Winner – Best Marketing Award, New Zealand Fringe 2020
Nominated – Best Performer, Independent Theatre, Green Room Awards 2020
Nominated – Best Writing, Independent Theatre, Green Room Awards 2020 

‘Best Of’ Accolades
#4 of Top Ten Theatre Shows in South Australia in 2022 - David O’Brien, Barefoot Review
Best Theatre of 2019 - Cameron Woodhead, The Age
#7 of Top Ten Best Shows of 2019 - Myron My, My Melbourne Arts
Best Theatre of 2019 - Keith Gow, keithgow.com
What Melbourne Loved 2019 - Anne-Marie Peard, Sometimes Melbourne

Show History
Laycock Street Theatre, Central Coast NSW 2024
Space Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre 2022
Bille Brown Theatre, Queensland Theatre, Undercover Artist Festival/Brisbane Festival 2021
The Bakehouse Theatre, Adelaide Fringe Festival 2021
Te Ahua, New Zealand Fringe Festival 2020
The Burrow, Melbourne Fringe Festival 2019

“Making Happy-Go-Wrong saved my life. 7 years ago, I lay on a rehearsal room floor in Melbourne and unwittingly dreamed up what would become a career-defining show that has had a profound impact on so many audiences on so many stages, big and small. The longevity of this show and my own healing through performing it, is testament to the power of art to transform the impossible into possible. It is my deep honour to bring this special show back to my hometown where it all began for one, final hurrah.” - Andi Snelling

PRAISE FOR HAPPY-GO-WRONG:

“This is a necessary show because it is bound up in the bountiful theatre skills of Andi Snelling: it is of her and about her… Keeping that balance between fun and danger is Snelling’s greatest power. She puts herself, naked and brave, as a question to the audience.” ★★★★★ - Tim Lloyd, The Advertiser

“A multi-talented, highly skilled performer who knows how to use theatricality - and roller skates - to explore what it is to be human. Snelling has an excellent sense of timing and knows how to hold a moment… Snelling pushes the boundaries and bravely bares her soul.” ★★★★★ - Greg Elliott, InDaily

“Happy-Go-Wrong is phenomenal. One of the best physical theatre works I’ve seen.” ★★★★★ - Kylie Maslen (on Twitter); “A gut-wrenchingly powerful performance, highlighting how something as seemingly innocent as an insect bite can irrevocably change a person’s life.” - Kylie Maslen, The Guardian

“The unpredictability of Happy-Go-Wrong ensures the show is captivating and suspenseful throughout. This is a testament to Andi Snelling’s ability as a storyteller and performer; she displays an incredible ability to change from comedic to dramatic with precision… Happy-Go-Wrong made me laugh, cry, shift uncomfortably, and feel uplifted all in the space of an hour. A show that needs to be seen, it left a lasting impact on me.” ★★★★★ - Alicia Sullivan, Mind Share

“Snelling is the consummate performer. Her stagecraft is well honed with first-rate timing. Her use of the masses of twisted brown paper is genius… This show is provoking and unsettling in parts, but it is also an exiting, joyous and life-affirming romp that leaves a wide and persistent smile on your face.” ★★★★★ - Kym Clayton, Barefoot Review

“Captivating, provocative, heart-wrenching… weird, wonderful and confronting. Always intriguing and never pre-emptive, Andi holds my attention from start to finish. She emotionally and physically bares all.” ★★★★★ - Shannessy Danswan, Theatre People

“A highlight of the year… Snelling is a sublimely talented performer dealt a serious blow by fate... Happy-Go-Wrong proves an inoculation against despair. It's also a knockdown argument for why indie theatre should benefit from a coherent and generous arts policy... It's a surprising and tangential odyssey that combines offbeat shtick, precarious dance theatre, entropic visual clowning and soul-scouring burlesque... an entertaining and moving exploration of the visceral, psychological, social and existential aspects of chronic illness and unfurls with winning humour, unflinching honesty and hard-won wisdom. If it doesn't take a larger stage at some point it's our lack of support for the arts that's sick.” - Cameron Woodhead, The Age

"A dynamic and truly moving piece of theatre.. She puts on the roller skates and boldly naked goes speeding around the arena of her story, to the cheers of the audience. It's just the best thing." - Ewart Shaw, Broadway World

"Sublime physical prowess... There is a powerful sense of theatrical completion in Happy Go Wrong. This work is without doubt a physical theatre piece that should be seen by many." - Lisa Lanzi, Theatre Travels

"Snelling is wickedly gifted in confronting an audience with the most difficult of subjects. That she has done so through her very real personal experience is testament to the greatness within her and deserving of many a repeat season. This is the play a very wrong world desperately needs." - David O’Brien, Barefoot Review

“Happy-Go-Wrong is a captivating, honest and powerful embodiment of the ongoing personal fight against a chronic health condition, in Snelling’s case, Lyme disease. Yet, at another level, Happy-Go-Wrong goes deeper than that… A love of life might not have been better depicted on stage… [It] deserves to be seen by a wider audience and on the main stages… People going to see Bryony Kimmings need to know about Andi Snelling.” - Robert Reid, Witness Performance

“The audience is putty in her hands… Happy-Go-Wrong beautifully brings invisible illness into plain sight… It’s hard to imagine a more direct exploration of living in a less able body than this, or a performer more suitable than Snelling… it’s radically valuable.” ★★★★ - Jesse Paris-Jourdan, Beat

“Snelling is a masterful performer. She keeps the audience riveted throughout. She leaps between singing, dancing, comedy, drama, roller skating and back again, and she makes it look easy… I loved this show. It’s been a long time since I have been so affected by a performance, and I can still feel the lump in my throat, writing this a day later… Happy Go Wrong is a glorious, captivating, celebration of life. It is a sucker punch of gratitude that will hit you right in the gut. It will leave you feeling so lucky to be alive.” - Kate Norquay, Art Murmurs NZ

“This is a raw-boned, muscular and visceral production – an intimate evocation of one person’s battle against on-going illness… This work expands its themes from the private and personal, rendering them into universal forms… not just about overcoming adversity, but transcending it… Snelling burns with an incandescent love of life. Her physical performance constantly astonishes… Her work is challenging and charming; confronting, confounding and captivating. Happy-Go-Wrong is an essential theatrical experience.” - Johnathon Kingston-Smith, Theatreview NZ

“A powerfully personal story… Happy-Go-Wrong draws the audience into the reality of living with a chronic illness… The sparkle in Andi Snelling’s eyes is evident throughout. When Snelling sings her original song, “You Are Alive”, we are all motionless, transfixed by a moment of pure emotion and truth. Snelling was born to be on the stage... her talent has been sorely missed and we can only hope that this work continues to breathe and grow.” - Myron My, My Melbourne Arts

“One big theatrical hit... Raw, brave and confronting in ways only a purely in tune performer can reach… Snelling is also blessed with an engaging face and command that have to be seen to be fully understood… Snelling has always deserved a prominent place in the entertainment industry, and her portrayal of her greatest plight shows that the fuel for exceptional performances can come from the strangest places. ”
- Corey Glamuzina, The Plus Ones

”A show of converging contrasts: heaven and earth, speech and silence, precise choreography and clowning, invisibility and visible vulnerability… It packs in an astounding amount of movement - it almost feels like it shouldn’t be possible.” - Aridhi Anderson, Weekend Notes

“An extraordinary feat of physical storytelling. Andi will make you laugh and cry and see her and the world a little bit differently. She’s back on stage and that’s brilliant but it’s also tough. It seems like a step back to her old life but it’s really another step forward, forging a path into a new world." – Keith Gow, keithgow.com

”Searing words, tight choreography… an innately passionate one woman performance. As always, her incredible physicality makes every movement a delight to watch. This piece leaves the audience engulfed in a furnace of vulnerability.” - Hayden Burke, Australian Stage

Created, Performed & Designed by Andi Snelling
Currently Produced by Andi Snelling
Previously Produced by Matthew Briggs (Under The Microscope)
Development Directed by Danielle Cresp
Dramaturgical Assistance by Fiona Scott-Norman
Sound by Caleb Garfinkel
Lighting Design by Mark Oakley (Bakehouse Theatre, Queensland Theatre & Adelaide Festival Centre seasons); Sidney Younger (fortyfivedownstairs season)

Thanks to the generous support of: La Mama, Darebin Arts, Howard Fine Acting Studio, Studio J Dance, The Burrow, Ralph McLean Microgrant, Adelaide Fringe Artist Fund, Arts SA and City of Melbourne.