Trabia Garden

Here's the seventh roundup of my fills for this year's Three-Sentence Ficathon! Another instalment that's entirely about The Goes Wrong Show; I have far too much fun writing fanfiction about these idiots.


( Assorted ficlets for the Goes Wrong Show, mainly Chris and Robert, 840 words total. )


I've apparently written... fifty fills for this year's ficathon? Fifty? Is that right? That doesn't feel like it can be right. I hadn't realised it was so dangerous to go into Three-Sentence Ficathon season with a specific fandom firmly occupying my mind.

The concept and characters of The Goes Wrong Show, the BBC theatrical comedy series best known for making me completely lose my mind, originated with The Play That Goes Wrong, an actual stage show that's been running in the West End for over a decade. And, well, I do live in London; if I'm going to go insane over a theatre fandom, I might as well take advantage of that!

Which is to say that Tem, Rei and I went to see The Play That Goes Wrong at the Duchess Theatre last night. It was a lot of fun!

During our meal before the play, my housemates teased me a fair bit for my nerves about seeing my blorbo Robert Grove in person. I tried to express that it was less nerve-racking than seeing him on stage in Christmas Carol Goes Wrong a few weeks ago, when he was actually played by the role's originator, Henry Lewis, the handsomest man in the world.

Riona: It'll be fine. I've already seen him in hard mode. (realising what I've just said) ...so to speak.

I ended up blushing very badly over the course of this conversation.

Tem: You're glowing, Riona. Almost like you've had a rendezvous with the handsomest man in the world and you have some news to share.

The actor playing Robert was good in the role - he was very recognisably the same character, and he had a good strong voice, which I think is essential; you're just not Robert Grove if you're not acting as loudly as possible - but I was tragically unhot for him. It's not your fault, sir; you've got stiff competition. So to speak.


( Notes on seeing The Play That Goes Wrong on stage. )


It's interesting to watch The Play That Goes Wrong, which was the first major Goes Wrong production, and which the creators presumably assumed at the time would be the only major Goes Wrong production. It's very focused on the technical side of things going wrong, with the characters taking more of a back seat (although the characters are still very much there even at this early stage; everyone was easily recognisable despite being played by different actors), and it tries to cram in every disaster it possibly can. By contrast, Christmas Carol Goes Wrong, their most recent stage production (not to be confused with the television special of the same name, which had a completely different script), was very character-focused and a lot more restrained when it came to things actually going wrong.

I really enjoy the 'things technically going wrong' aspect; it's a lot of fun, and always beautifully timed! But I'm also glad that, over time, the Goes Wrong universe has started to focus a little more on the characters themselves; I think it helps to keep the concept fresh.

By this point, I've stopped even pretending to think about other fandoms. Have ten more tiny Goes Wrong Show ficlets for the threesentenceficathon. Most of these are actually three sentences, at least!


( Assorted ficlets for the Goes Wrong Show, mainly Chris and Robert, 1,100 words total. )


Poking through bits of the script for the stage version of Peter Pan Goes Wrong, I was intrigued to discover one particular tiny segment. Robert, playing Nana the dog, is trapped in the dog door, meaning he's nowhere near the human characters when they start complaining that he's getting fur on them. Naturally, they come up with the sanest possible solution:

Chris: Oh, you useless animal! You've got dog hairs all over my trousers!
(He goes over to Robert and rubs his trousers over him.)
Sandra: Silly hound! You've got hair all over everyone.
(They all rub themselves on Robert.)

Tragically, this did not make it into the television cut! HOWEVER, I'm delighted to find there is a three-second 'Robert on his hands and knees while Sandra rubs herself against his beard' clip from rehearsals floating around, which you can find here on Tumblr if you're as normal about Robert Grove as I am.

This is another Goes Wrong Show fic that started life as a fill for the Three-Sentence Ficathon! My worst failure to keep to three sentences yet; this version is slightly expanded, but the original fill was still over a thousand words.

The original prompt was 'outsider POV'. I originally started thinking about using an original character, and then it hit me that, as Vanessa joined later than the rest of the company, she could be the outsider.


Title: The Outsider
Fandom: The Goes Wrong Show
Rating: G
Wordcount: 1,600
Summary: How did Vanessa end up joining the Cornley Drama Society?


( The Outsider )

Of course I was going to write this. Inevitably I was going to write this. It didn't help that Robert accused Sandra of 'flirting with everyone' in Peter Pan Goes Wrong; my reaction was very much to perk up and go 'everyone, you say?'


Title: Educational Experiences
Fandom: The Goes Wrong Show
Rating: 15
Pairing: everyone/everyone, particularly Robert/Sandra and Sandra/everyone
Wordcount: 1,800
Summary: Robert folds his arms. “If you’re not going to take the orgy seriously, we won’t have it.”


( Educational Experiences )

Here's another Goes Wrong fic that grew out of a fill for the threesentenceficathon! All the fanfiction I've been writing has pushed Robert Grove from the fifth-most-tagged Goes Wrong Show character on AO3 up to third place, and I am drunk with power.

I think I might have accidentally written something cute. I promise this wasn't my intention.


Title: Gone Astray
Fandom: The Goes Wrong Show
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Robert/Chris
Wordcount: 3,000
Summary: After The Spirit of Christmas, someone has to get Robert home safely, and the role falls to an unwilling Chris.


( Gone Astray )

For each of my major fandoms, I do a short writeup talking about how it fits into my fandom history. A fandom qualifies as 'major' if I've written five fics for it, or ten thousand words across at least three fics.

I don't think the latest addition is going to be a surprise to anyone.


The Goes Wrong Show

I can pinpoint exactly when The Goes Wrong Show first happened to me. It was the sixth of December, 2025; I was thirty-seven. I was at my parents' house to see some relatives who were visiting.

My fifteen-year-old cousin, H, had removed himself from the socialisation and was watching a Minecraft video on the television in the sitting room. I asked if I could read in the room while he watched television; I thought that'd be a nice, low-pressure way for us to hang out. He switched from Minecraft videos to an episode of The Goes Wrong Show: "You'd probably like this more."

I've been aware of the existence of The Play That Goes Wrong for a long time; it's hard not to be if you're a Londoner! If you've lived in London at any point in the last decade, or if a visit has ever brought you to the West End, chances are that you've seen posters for it at Tube stations. I remember the evocative name caught my eye when it first started showing up.

My friend RD had seen The Play That Goes Wrong years ago and said it was hilarious, so it had stuck in my mind as something that was probably good fun, even if I had no actual plans to see it. I'd never heard of The Goes Wrong Show, but I realised instantly, from the style of the logo, that it was related to The Play That Goes Wrong, so I was interested to see what it was like!

The episode H put on was 'The Lodge'. As I had anticipated, it showed actors putting on a play - in this case a ghost story - and that play going wrong in every possible way. My main initial impressions:

a) this is very silly
b) this is pretty fun
c) there's a lot of genuinely impressive effort and skill on display; this is an actual stage play being filmed in front of a live audience, and it must take such precise timing to make things 'go wrong' correctly
d) who is that man?????

The man in question was the creepy owner of the haunted lodge. He was compelling! He was hot! He was loud and weird and ridiculous! At one point he got knocked out by a vase falling on his head, and somehow that only made him more attractive to me; it was such a well-done piece of physical comedy.

At one point H's mother, S, came into the room and saw we were watching The Goes Wrong Show. 'Oh, it's Robert,' she commented, when the man I was so fascinated by happened to be on screen.

S explained that the character of Robert had also been in Peter Pan Goes Wrong, which she had seen on stage. I'd originally assumed that the concept of this show was just 'a play goes wrong' without any kind of story behind it, and I was surprised and interested to discover that the 'actors' involved were actually consistent characters across the different plays.

'He's very good,' I said, enraptured.

After 'The Lodge' had finished, we also watched the episode '90 Degrees', at S's request. It had less screentime for Robert, alas, but it was an absolutely extraordinary technical achievement, improved even further by the fact that S's mother had now joined us and was absolutely losing it laughing.

So I'd now seen two episodes of The Goes Wrong Show! I'd enjoyed them, but I didn't carry on with the show straight away. Shamefully, what drove me to watch more wasn't actually the comedy; it was the fact that I found myself idly thinking about Robert while I walked down the street. I just wanted to see more of that bizarre handsome weirdo.

The show is on BBC iPlayer, and I couldn't watch it at home because we don't have a television licence, so I tried out another episode when I next visited my parents. And then another. And another, and another. And then I ordered every Goes Wrong DVD I could get my hands on, and then I started buying theatre tickets, and that's how we've ended up here. I'm so sorry.

Favourite character: who could it beeeeeeee (it's Robert, of course it's Robert, why do I have such a weakness for a large man with a loud and aggressive persona) (shut the FUCK up, Freud, I don't want to hear your opinion)
Favourite pairing: Robert/Chris. Their dynamic is just so fascinatingly weird. They're friends! They're enemies! They're bizarrely obsessed with each other! Robert has slept with Chris's mother! Chris has kissed Robert's sister! Robert has repeatedly attempted to incapacitate Chris in an effort to steal a role from him! Robert wrote Chris a role specifically designed to humiliate him, but also included a scene in which his own character and Chris's connect and find common ground! What's wrong with them?? I have no idea, but it's great.
Number of words written: 9,763 on my main AO3 account, plus about 3,000 words' worth of fills for the Three-Sentence Ficathon.

Snippet: I've finished most of the things I've started for the Goes Wrong series, but here's a silly little snippet that probably won't go anywhere.

( The Goes Wrong Show unfinished snippet, Chris and Annie, 2026. )

In my headlong, desperate fall into the Goes Wrong fandom, I've discovered a Twitter account for the character of Robert Grove, with the wonderful username of @robertgoodactor, operating mainly between 2013 and 2015. The account has apparently been mentioned in past programmes for the Goes Wrong plays, so it's presumably official!

Twitter is now a barely accessible mess, and I'm not sure how much longer it'll be possible to read Robert's tweets, so I've dug out my favourites and reproduced them in this entry!


( Official Twitter posts from Robert Grove. )


Tracking down all the scattered Cornley Drama Society lore continues to be a challenge, but I love that every character detail I'm rewarded with is absolutely stupid.

While I'm noting down semi-obscure Cornley lore, here's a short exchange I stumbled across in the script for the stage version of Peter Pan Goes Wrong, in which Chris and Robert try to show each other up in front of the audience while introducing the play:

Chris: This generous cash injection has meant that tonight's production will certainly outshine our rather underfunded Christmas show that Robert directed: Jack and the Bean.
Robert: In one of Chris's productions, due to an ill-timed haircut, Rapunzel had to be imprisoned in a bungalow.
Chris: Indeed, that was almost as bad as when Robert insisted on using a real cat in his production of Puss in Boots, which became known amongst the company as 'Puss Who Was Occasionally in Boots, but Often Refused to Wear His Boots, and Then Bit a Child'.

After seeing Christmas Carol Goes Wrong on stage, I bought the official script; I thought it would be a nice way to remind myself of my evening at the theatre. And it is! But it's also interesting to see how many things had been changed or added by the time I saw it in performance.

Flicking through, here are some of the more interesting differences I've noticed between the script version and the actual performance I saw on the fourteenth of January!


( Some differences between the script and the actual staged version of Christmas Carol Goes Wrong. )


Finally, a delightful little exchange from the script that I don't remember being in the show itself:

Sandra: Listen, we all know the Cornley Gazette's official policy has been not to review our shows since our immersive production of Dracula.
Robert: The small print on the ticket clearly said I would enter his house and bite him.

The annual Three-Sentence Ficathon is underway; you can find the prompt post here! This is my favourite fandom event of the year; it's always a blast.

Of course, this time, I've been neck-deep in a specific fandom when the ficathon has rolled around. I apologise to everyone for turning every prompt into an excuse to write for the Goes Wrong Show.

I've got a few ficlets from elsewhere I haven't yet posted here, so I'll share those before launching into the ficathon:


( Final Fantasy XIII, Lightning/Snow, 330 words, prompt: missing Serah. )

( Taskmaster, s20 cast, 120 words, prompt: pirate AU. )

( Danganronpa, Komaeda/Kokichi, 350 words. )

( Deltarune, Kris and Noelle, 500 words, prompt: the Snowgrave porch visit. )

( Hundred Line/Danganronpa, Yugamu/Komaeda, 150 words, NB sexual surgery. )


And now for the actual threesentenceficathon fills!


( Assorted ficlets for the Goes Wrong Show, Robert and Chris, 450 words total. )


Most of these are actually three sentences, for a change! We'll see whether that lasts.