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Noises Off Returns to West End's Piccadilly, 4 Aug

The National Theatre's revival of Michael Frayn's classic backstage farce Noises Off will return once again to the West End, reopening at the Piccadilly Theatre where it had an extended run in 2001/2002. The comedy concludes its current six-month UK regional tour on 26 July 2003 (See News, 11 Nov 2002), and then restarts performances on 4 August 2003 at the Piccadilly where it's initially booking to 18 October 2003.

Noises Off is considered one of the great comic hits of the 1980s. The backstage imbroglio follows a touring company who mount a chaotic production of a trouser-dropping farce calling Nothing On. Amongst all the confusion, frayed tempers, broken hearts and off-stage explosions, can the show go on? Noises Off was first produced at the West End's Savoy Theatre in 1982, when it won the Olivier for Best Comedy and went on to run for five years.

The current production first opened in October 2000 to rave reviews at the National Theatre and had an eight-week national tour before transferring to the West End's Piccadilly Theatre in May 2001 and then, in February 2002, to the Comedy Theatre, where it closed on 20 July 2002. The current tour, taking in some 24 venues, launched on 27 January 2003.

The touring cast - who are expected to reprise their roles in the West End - features Cheryl Campbell (Life After George, Passion Play, The Seagull, Volpone) as Dotty Otley, Paul Bradley (EastEnders on screen, The Relapse, Wind in the Willows, The Threesome, A Midsummer Night's Dream on stage) as Frederick Fellowes, Philip Franks (Art, Marat/Sade, The Importance of Being Earnest, Ivanov, Hamlet) as Lloyd Dallas and former Dr Who Sylvester McCoy as Selsdon Mowsbray.

Noises Off is directed by Jeremy Sams and designed by Robert Jones. The Piccadilly Theatre has been dark since the closure of musical Ragtime on 14 June 2003 (See News, 2 Jun 2003).

- by Terri Paddock

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