Although Noises Off is now decades old, no-one has ever been able to capture the combination of parody and affectionate tribute which makes Michael Frayn’s play so special. The Play That Goes Wrong takes a similar approach to spoofing the theatre world but features an amateur company, while Frayn’s comic masterpiece has a professional setting.
Characters in the play have their own way of interpreting professional behaviour. One thinks as long as she says her lines and hits her marks, she is fulfilling her craft, despite ignoring the chaos erupting around her. Others respond to unexpected developments by deviating from the script and trying to explain events to the audience, even if they can barely understand what is happening themselves.
Watching a performance of the mediocre farce Nothing On, the audience is bemused when director Lloyd Dallas (Simon Shepherd) interrupts to give instruction to the cast. It becomes apparent we are not watching an actual performance but a dress rehearsal and one that reveals certain characteristics of the performers—a fondness for gossip or alcohol, an inability to be articulate or to cope with the possibility of violence—which will impact upon the actual performance. As the tour progresses, tensions arise between the cast, who are professionally obliged to go through with the play without making the audience aware of the growing internal problems and increasing hostility.
The construction of Noises Off is a thing of wonder. The first act illustrates events in the play within a play with such precision that, when the action shifts backstage in the second act, the audience is gleefully aware moving a certain prop or entering through a specific door will have hilarious consequences on stage.
Despite being set in the world of theatre where those involved are often classed as self-regarding, Noises Off avoids becoming a string of smug theatrical in-jokes. Most of the backstage gags—confusing tannoy announcements inviting patrons to take their seats—are those to which theatregoers can easily relate. The central joke—actors in a farce are unaware they are, in real life, behaving like characters in a farce—is simply hilarious.
An excellent cast avoid the temptation to just coast along on a gorgeous script. Dan Fredenburgh moves from being endearingly vague to apoplectic with rage as he tries and fails to make sense of events, while Liza Goddard behaves like someone shell-shocked, no longer able to respond to the illogical developments. There is, however, complete dedication to the belief the show must go on, as one person after another gallantly assumes the role of an actor they believe has become incapacitated by drink. In the classic tradition of farce, much of the humour is physical rather than verbal with impressive tumbling down stairs and bumping of heads.
Noises Off breathes new life into the tired farce genre to provide an evening full of laughs.