Happy-Go-Wrong
MULTI-AWARD-WINNING PHYSICAL THEATRE ODYSSEY OF LIFE-SAVING PROPORTIONS
Powerhouse performer Andi Snelling is in the fight of her life
after a tick bite plunges her into death’s grip.
Little does she know, she is about to orchestrate her own rescue
with the help of a philosophising French angel.
A remarkable true story, Happy-Go-Wrong is a solo physical theatre odyssey that celebrates the human spirit through an uncanny blend of performance genres, including clowning, storytelling, dance and… roller skates!
Following the greatest accident of her life, Andi is “stuck behind the fourth wall.” Her rescue mission is set in motion by an angel of death who has travelled to earth from Cloud Nine. Set amongst a spellbinding moveable set of giant brown paper sculptures and with unflinching honesty and gut-punching comedy, this rollercoaster show aligns the personal with the universal, making visible the invisible experience of chronic illness like you’ve never seen before.
Combined with Snelling’s signature no-holds-barred performance style, the show’s ultimate message of hope amidst uncertainty leaves audiences cherishing the preciousness of life with long-lasting impact. With five awards, countless standing ovations, and sold-out seasons across Australia, this “highlight of the year” (The Age) is simply unmissable.
"Making Happy-Go-Wrong saved my life. After a tiny tick bite sent me to the brink and back through developing Lyme disease, I realised that sometimes being thrown upside down can put you back up the right way. As I continue to fight for my health, and seek out the happy in all the wrong, Happy-Go-Wrong is a lifeline that shines a light on the invisible battles that so many face on a daily basis. I am delighted to continue to share this special show with audiences across Australia.” - Andi Snelling
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
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
From the Fringe circuit to mainstages across Australia, Happy-Go-Wrong has undergone an extraordinary and continually growing journey, paralleling Andi’s own personal healing journey from life-threatening chronic illness. The show has also become a vehicle for many media and other speaking opportunities on invisible illness, disability advocacy and autobiographical solo theatre-making. Andi also offers companion workshops to the show. Andi was honoured to speak about the show and run a workshop at Meeting Place in Canberra (Australia’s annual arts, culture and disability forum), as well as the many other podcast and other opportunities this show has given her. Andi looks forward to a long, bright touring future for Happy-Go-Wrong, both locally and internationally.
PRAISE FOR HAPPY-GO-WRONG:
“Happy-Go-Wrong is phenomenal. One of the best physical theatre works I’ve seen… 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
“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
“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
A note on the representation of disability/chronic illness in the show:
Happy-Go-Wrong offers a raw, intimate and visceral experience of invisible illness, and, on a broader level, of the invisible battles we all face. Importantly, it raises awareness about life-threatening illness/disability in a way that doesn’t wallow in misery and remains authentic to the experience; it champions the possibilities such an experience can offer to the world, while not shying away from the darkness. The show has people laughing, crying and deeply reflecting, leaving its audience with a powerful message of gratitude at the simple joy of being alive. It is one of those gem shows that opens up lengthy discussions in the foyer and online afterwards, with its strong educational element making it vital viewing.
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 by Mark Oakley
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 and Arts SA.