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in: Characters, The Goes Wrong Show

Vanessa Wilcock-Wynn-Carroway

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"No! That's reality! Join me in fiction!"
―Vanessa to Dennis

Vanessa Wilcock-Wynn-Carroway, or simply just Vanessa Carroway, is a member of Cornley Drama Society, who appears in The Goes Wrong Show. She is portrayed by Bryony Corrigan.

Personality[]

Vanessa Wilcock-Wynn-Carroway is a classic example of an Ascended Extra in the Goes Wrong universe. Prior to The Goes Wrong Show, she mostly appeared as a stagehand or in minor background roles. However, in the TV series, she steps into the spotlight as a full member of the Cornley Drama Society ensemble, bringing a unique and often understated comedic presence.

As one of the more "normal" and composed members of the group, Vanessa frequently plays the "straight man" amid the chaos. Unlike Chris Bean, who becomes openly enraged when things spiral out of control, Vanessa usually reacts with mild frustration, confusion, or quiet anxiety. She often tries to hold the production together, even as disaster looms—such as in The Spirit of Christmas, when she plays a little girl and desperately protests “Santa’s” offer of sherry, staying in character despite the absurdity.

Vanessa’s struggle with improvisation is a recurring source of comedy. When things fall apart, she often looks genuinely unsure of what to do, leading to some memorably awkward moments. For instance:

  • In The Pilot, she ends up reading aloud every telegram handed to her—regardless of context—simply because they’re put in front of her.
  • In The Lodge, when Jonathan fails to make his entrance in time to stop her, she goes ahead with her line and inadvertently kills her own character’s child.
  • In 90 Degrees, when Dennis fails to pass her a beer prop, she awkwardly pretends to drink from a decorative bear statue instead.
  • Occasionally, she manages a surprisingly clever ad lib, such as in The Nativity, when the show ends up with nine Wise Men, and she quips, “It’s like MENSA in here.”

Though she is generally good at memorizing her lines, Vanessa struggles when dialogue is in foreign languages. This is particularly unfortunate in The Pilot (which was originally meant to be her first full appearance before a schedule change caused by the 2019 General Election), where she was cast as a linguistics expert and required to deliver lines in French, Spanish, and German.

Despite her challenges, Vanessa has moments where her talent shines. She possesses an impressive singing voice and manages to keep up vocally even when the backing track is mistakenly played at a much higher pitch in The Spirit of Christmas. In The Cornley Drama Festival Part 2, she is paired with Chris Bean in his ambitious ballet. She dances impressively—until the performance is abruptly cut short when she’s hurled into a camera.

Overall, Vanessa adds a subtle but essential dimension to the ensemble. Her reactions provide a grounded contrast to the exaggerated performances around her, and her character’s quiet persistence in the face of escalating chaos often makes her one of the most relatable—and quietly hilarious—members of the Cornley Drama Society.

She does have an impressive singing voice and is able to keep up when the backing track is turned up too many octaves in The Spirit of Christmas. (Vanessa's actual first appearance). In "The Cornley Drama Festival Part 2" she is paired to dance with Chris in his ballet, and dances very well before she is thrown into a camera.

Relationships[]

Dennis Tyde[]

Out of the cast members that appear in The Goes Wrong Show Vanessa is the one that gets most 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 other have gotten use to him. In "90 Degrees" , in which they play a married couple, there is a scene where Vanessa's character asks Dennis to pass her a can of beer that's on a table next to him but due to her American accent he thinks she's asking for him to pass him the Bear statue which is next to the Beer. Vanessa makes several attempts to get him to understand and pass the right object just after multiple tries before she just resorts to pretending to drink the Bear statue. They also play a couple (divorced) in "The Trial" and, a brother and sister 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 she's genuinely proposing to him. They are then married offscreen.

Robert Grove[]

In "The Cornley Drama Festival Part 1" Robert runs an acting class where he lines up the rest of the Society's from best to worst based on their acting skills. Robert places her at number four meaning that he judges her as a good actor though she is possibly counts as number 3 after Chris is moved down the line.

Roles[]

Songs:

Trivia[]

  • Vanessa is the only principal character whose surname was not revealed, however on 13th August 2020 Henry Shields stated on his Twitter that the latest script had it written as "Wilcock-Wynn-Carroway, because it's silly".
  • She is one of the most helpful (but breaks character often because of it) because when the piano catches fire in The Nativity, she is one of the first to react with a fire blanket and a bucket of sand.
  • Her last name "Carroway" is similar to Caraway House, the location of the Goes Wrong Show episode The Pilot (Not the Pilot).
  • Vanessa was not Bryony Corrigan's first character in the Goes Wrong Extended Universe, as she was a Stage Crew Member in Peter Pan Goes Wrong. It is possible that Vanessa was the same character as the crew member and decided to go into acting, the same as Annie. We are not told what any of the other members of CDS do for a living, but it is also possible that the BBC receptionist portrayed by Bryony Corrigan in "A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong" is Vanessa - as a BBC employee, she would not have been let in on CDS's plans to hijack the production. However she neither acknowledges that she recognises any of the CDS, nor allows them access, when they try to enter the studios.
  • Zoom Goes Wrong depicts her as living with her boyfriend, played by Peter Hannah (Corrigan's real-life partner). Hannah's character has not appeared in any Mischief media to date other than this video, and no reference is made to Vanessa being in a relationship on The Goes Wrong Show, other than her accidental (and very expensive) engagement to Dennis in the "Cornley Drama Festival Part 1".
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