In
Peter Pan Goes Wrong, Robert comments on Sandra 'flirting with everybody'. Everybody, you say? I do love an opportunity to ship a character with everyone, but how do I learn how to
write everyone?
When I get fannishly into a work of fiction, I want to gather whatever information I can find that might be useful for characterisation. Usually, this is a simple matter; I just have to watch the show or read the book or play the game!
The
Goes Wrong Show universe is more of a challenge. The actual actors are playing fictitious 'actors' who are playing characters, and it's the 'actors' I want to learn more about. If you want to learn more about the fictitious members of the Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society, you really have to go digging!
There are snippets of characterisation scattered across a bunch of theatrical performances and supplemental materials, some of which are readily available and some of which really aren't. The
Goes Wrong Show itself is easy to come by; it's on BBC iPlayer (although I bought it on DVD because we don't have a television licence), and I've heard it's free on YouTube outside the UK.
(If you're curious about this stupid thing I've gone insane about, I suggest trying the
Goes Wrong Show episode '90 Degrees', which instantly makes it clear how ludicrously dedicated the (actual) actors are to the craft of fucking everything up. It takes genuine effort to make a play go this badly!)
Beyond that, I find myself desperately piecing these characters together through brief faux 'behind the scenes' videos across various platforms, and one two-hour in-character radio broadcast,
The Christmas That Goes Wrong, which aired in 2016 and is now
only available on the Internet Archive.
(I'm including this link solely for my own future self's reference; this is very much a 'this is of interest to me and only me' piece of media! Do you want to hear Chris Bean and Robert Grove fuck up and play 'Summer Holiday' instead of 'White Christmas' three times? Of course you don't. I do. This is for me. If for some reason you do decide to listen, the programme starts three minutes into the audio file, but I really wouldn't recommend it unless the
Goes Wrong universe already has its claws in you.)
I still haven't seen
The Play That Goes Wrong itself, which is where most of these characters actually originated. I am, I'll be honest, eyeing up theatre tickets.
Anyway, here are my favourite stupid facts I've gleaned about the members of this fictional drama society from supplemental materials. Actually, now that I double-check, all of these facts are about Robert, my beloved terrible egotistic weirdo. (Why are all of my blorbos the worst? Why can't I ever fall in love with someone nice?)
( Stupid facts about Robert Grove of the Goes Wrong Show. )My personal favourite bit of supplemental
Goes Wrong material I've come across is
this stupid two-minute promotional video (Tumblr link) in which Robert is helping Chris try on suits. Extremely weird and homoerotic; single-handedly sent me from 'I'm not really shipping any of these characters' to 'okay, yeah, these two should have absolutely disastrous sex'. Robert may or may not actively be attempting to murder Chris here?
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Thursday: First Kiss
Jan. 8th, 2026 08:41 amJust a few rules:
No more than five prompts in a row.
No more than three prompts in the same fandom.
Use the character's full names and the fandom's full name
No spoilers in prompts for a month after airing, or use the spoiler cut option found here. Unfortunately, DW doesn’t have a cut tag, so use your best judgment when it comes to spoilers.
If your fill contains spoilers, warn and leave plenty of space, or use the above-mentioned spoiler cut.
Prompts should be formatted as follows: [Use the character's full names and fandom's full name]
Fandom, Character +/ Character, Prompt
Some examples to get the ball rolling...
Teen Wolf, Sheriff Stilinski/Melissa McCall, the first kiss since Claudia died
Teen Wolf, Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, a little wild and crazy
Any, Any Male/Any Female, took his first kiss…and then his second kiss too
We are now using AO3 to bookmark filled prompts. If you fill a prompt and post it to AO3 please add it to the Bite Sized Bits of Fic from 2026 collection. See further notes on this new option here.
Not feeling any of today’s prompts? You can use LJ’s advanced search options to limit keyword results to only comments in this community. Fret not, DW members; we are working on a way to search through old entries for prompts for you! As of right now, the best way to search for a lonely prompt on DW is to search the community’s archive, which can be found [[HERE]].
While the use of LJ's advanced search and DW’s archive are options, bookmarking the links of prompts you like might work better for searching in the future.
As a friendly reminder about our schedule, Lonely Prompts and sharing completed fills are encouraged on Sundays, while new themes and prompts are posted on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Saturdays are a Free for All day. We'll share our posts on DW and LJ for everyone's convenience. Keep an eye out for notifications!
If you have a Dreamwidth account and would feel more comfortable participating there, please feel free to do so…and spread the word!
tag=FirstKiss