Noises Off

In 1998 former New York Times critic Frank Rich wrote in his book Hot Seat that “Noises Off was, is, perhaps always will be the funniest play written in my lifetime.” He also said the film adaptation was “one of the worst movies ever made,” and that’s because Noises Off is a theatrical conceit that only belongs on a stage.

Using the play-within-a-play format, back in 1982 Michael Frayne constructed a comedy whereby a group of third-rate actors are touring a trouser-dropping West End farce Nothing On in the English provinces and everything that could go wrong does. Noises Off was the beginning of a genre that spawned numerous imitators, the most recent being The Play That Goes Wrong. With characters that include a temperamental director, an old-stager drunk, a bimbo who loses her contact lens, and a Cockney housekeeper who keeps losing her sardines, plus the petty jealousies, personal backstabbing and romantic entanglements, it’s a minefield of situation for a bucket-load of belly-laughs.

This co-production with Melbourne Theatre Company has its strengths; a fine cast, an enormous set (perhaps a little beyond the budget for a UK tour), and good lighting and sound. Simon Burke let the acid fly as the harassed director who’d rather be off rehearsing Shakespeare, Libby Munro spent most of the performance in her underwear looking sexy and searching for her contact lens, Steven Tandy was a sozzled inept burglar, whilst Ray Chong Nee did pratfalls and somersaults with split-second timing. As the has-been soap-opera star Dotty Otley, doubling as the Cockney housekeeper Mrs Clockett, Louise Siversen played it broadly on-stage and grandly off. James Saunders did well as the harassed Stage Manager, with solid support coming from Nicki Wendt as the one sane actress in the group, Emily Goddard as the flustered and pregnant ASM, and Hugh Parker who made dropping his trousers into an art form.

It’s not the funniest production I’ve seen of Noises Off, mainlybecause the director’s hand was often too obvious. Stage business that was unfunny in the first place was still unfunny when repeated but that didn’t seem to worry the matinee audience who frequently killed themselves laughing.

Peter Pinne