Dennis Tyde is a member of the Cornley Drama Society. He joined the society due to none of the other clubs accepting him. His first role was in The Murder At Haversham Manor. Dennis' birthday is around May, as shown by footage from his birthday party in A Christmas Carol.
Personality[]
Dennis is an anxious man, soft spoken and not very good at staying in character. He seems much younger than he is due to his nervous manner. He is woefully bad at remembering his lines, writing them down on his hands, having them written on objects, or having to use a headset that feeds them to him. In "A Christmas Carol", Dennis is seen reminding Chris Bean his lines, showing that he remembers everyone else's lines, but not his.
He's often the reason scenes don't go to plan, and this causes the other actors to get frustrated with him easily.
Dennis is self-aware of his inability to memorize his lines, which causes him to break down sometimes mid-show when the audience laugh at him. This is first seen in "The Play That Goes Wrong" where he has several lines or phrases written down on his hands. This has gotten worse by the time of Peter Pan where he is seen in the behind the scenes part not being able to remember his lines and being given a headset to be fed his lines. The Headset works with him being able to be fed him his lines at the right times though he does say some of the lines in a flat emotional way. This however goes wrong as he repeats everything he hears, such as the crew telling him that he's wearing the wrong clothes, and the headset picking up radio stations and taxi frequencies. Chris becomes annoyed with these nonessential interruptions and takes away the headset, causing him to stammer, not knowing his lines. Chris tries to prompt him by speaking his lines for him but this only causes Dennis to start saying Chris's lines, essentially having them swap characters. This means that even though Dennis has trouble remembering his lines he seems to have memorised many of the casts lines.
This happens again in "A Trial to Watch" when he is again unable to remembers his lines and somehow cause himself, Vanessa and Robert to swap characters for a short period of time. In the same episode he also has a problem pronouncing words correctly such as saying "prostitution" instead of "prosecution" and "sex life" rather than "ex wife".
In many productions he is given the part of a non-human animal (horse, reindeer, bird, swarm of bees) or an inanimate object (telegraph machine, hunting trophy), minimising the number of lines he has to learn - although he usually manages to mess them up anyway, Two of the human roles he is given (in "90 Degrees" and "Summer Once Again") are sedentary, reducing the number of stage directions he can mess up.
Despite not being very bright, he seems to care a lot for his fellow society members. He has difficulty telling the difference between the show and reality. In "90 Degrees" when the dog falls over he gets up to help correct it, forgetting that his character is meant to be disabled and in a wheelchair. In "The Most Lamentable..." his character is singing a song and the lyrics are written for him on a scroll. When the scroll is set on fire, he is forced to make the rest of the song up as he goes along. Despite struggling at the start, he is able to come up with a decent enough - albeit extremely bawdy - rhyme.
At times he can be quite literal minded such as in "The Nativity" when a fire breaks out: he runs on set with a blow torch and attempts to fight fire with fire. In "The Spirit of Christmas" he is playing a reindeer and asks Chris what noise it should make, and when Chris replies with "this is clearly a matter for reharsals, Dennis!" he takes this seriously and repeats the line later when he's meant to be making a reindeer sound.
A rare example of Dennis showing presence of mind occurs in Peter Pan, when he tries to use the pirate ship's anchor to stop the runaway revolving stage. Unfortunately he omits to tie the other end of the rope to anything.
Relationships[]
Chris Bean[]
As director, Chris is the member of the group who is most frequently affected by Dennis' antics, which tend to push him to the limit, leading him to break character (openly shouting at him in a number of live performances.)
Robert Grove[]
Robert gets annoyed at Dennis' antics a lot, and generally looks down on him. However, in the See it Safely Covid Safety video, it is stated that they live together. In "The Cornley Drama Festival Part 1" Robert runs an acting class where he lines up the rest of the Society's actors from best to worst based on their acting skills. Robert places Dennis at number Seven in the line which is for actors he considers "Sub actors". When Dennis is unable to remember the lines, even though its written on the card he is holding, Robert refers to him as "Medically fascinating".
Despite this, Dennis doesn't seem to harbour any strong feelings against Robert, and during The Christmas That Goes Wrong, he admits he sees Robert as somewhat of a father figure.
Dennis also lives with Robert, as seen in The Christmas That Goes Wrong and the See It Safely instructional video.
Max Bennett[]
Max is friendly, patient, and often very supportive towards Dennis. In The Play that Goes Wrong, Max can be seen offering encouragement to Dennis after he becomes upset with himself for mispronouncing difficult words. Max also co-stars in Dennis's two-man short play, Toothpaste, £1.69, brings him on stage for a second round of bows after the performance, and gives Dennis a hug as the curtain closes.
Vanessa Wilcock-Wynn-Carroway[]
Out of the cast members that appear in The Goes Wrong Show Vanessa is the one least comfortable with improvisation and therefore frequently gets flustered with Dennis's weird behaviour or when he forgets his lines or gets confused. This may be due to the fact that she's the newest member of the group and the others have gotten use to him or simply because, in the few performances in which he is cast as a human, he is usually playing opposite Vanessa (as her ex-husband in "The Trial", her husband in "90 Degrees", and her brother in "Summer Once Again"). In The Most Lamentable... Dennis forgets characters' names and mixes up the character names with the cast names resulting in Vanessa trying to explain the difference between fiction and reality to him. In The Cornley Drama Festival Part 1, Vanessa tries to improvise a proposal scene with him, but Dennis doesn't realise she's acting, causing him to believe they are genuinely engaged.
Annie Twilloil[]
Annie seems to have a soft spot for Dennis, as in A Christmas Carol, she helps place cue cards for him all over the set.
Roles[]
- Perkins - The Murder At Haversham Manor
- John/Smee - Peter Pan
- Bob Cratchit/Priest/Pallbearer - A Christmas Carol
The Goes Wrong Show[]
- Rudolph - The Spirit of Christmas
- Telegraph machine - The Pilot (Not the Pilot)
- Carl McKinnon - A Trial to Watch
- Deer Head - The Lodge
- Treacle (horse) - Harper's Locket
- Buddy Burgess - 90 Degrees
- Wiseman/Shepherd/Innkeeper - The Nativity
- Uncle Edward - Summer Once Again
- Eric the Jester - The Most Lamentable...
- Marty the Bird - There Is No Escape
- Himself/Bowl/Bird - The Cornley Drama Festival Part 1
- Himself/Benny Webber/Shop Buyer/Bees - The Cornley Drama Festival Part 2
Mentioned - Outside of the Cornley Drama Society[]
- Shepard - Primary School Nativity
Trivia[]
Actors[]
The role of Dennis Tyde was originated by Jonathan Sayer.
Both The Play That Goes Wrong and Peter Pan Goes Wrong are live performances, and there are a number of actors that have played the role of Dennis Tyde throughout the years.
List of Actors[]
- Jonathan Sayer: Portrayed by him in the original and Broadway cast of The Play That Goes Wrong and Peter Pan Goes Wrong (Both BBC and West End Productions), A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong (BBC), and the Goes Wrong Show.
- Michael Keane (West End)
- Benjamin McMahon (West End & UK Tour)
- Harrison Unger (Broadway)
- Todd Buonopane (US Tour)
- Bartley Booz (Off-Broadway)
- George Peter Kemp
- Niall Ransome
- Sydney K. Smith
- Romayne Andrews
- Michael Kyrowski