The Old Vic is one of the oldest theatres in London and famous throughout the English speaking world. Long known as 'the actors theatre', many of the greatest performers of the last century have played on its stage. In September 2004, The Old Vic Theatre Company was launched, under the artistic leadership of Kevin Spacey, to present a wide range of work, from the classic to the new, to appeal to both traditional theatre-goers and new audiences.
Winner of both Olivier and Tony Awards for Best Comedy, Noises Off serves up a riotous double bill - a play within a play. Hurtling along at breakneck speed it follows the backstage antics of a touring theatre company as they stumble their way through rehearsals to a shambolic first night and a final disastrous performance.
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Lindsay Posner's revival is the first major London outing for the popular play since Jeremy Sams’ 2000 production at the National Theatre. That production enjoyed two West End stints, first at the Comedy Theatre and then at the Piccadilly following a UK tour. Noises Off was first produced at the West End's Savoy Theatre in 1982, winning an Olivier for Best Comedy and running for five years.
The farce's backstage imbroglio follows a touring company who mount a chaotic production of the trouser-dropping Nothing On. Amongst all the confusion, frayed tempers, broken hearts and off-stage explosions, can the show go on?
There are critical comparisons drawn with Richard Bean's acclaimed farce One Man, Two Guvnors, which the National Theatre recently transferred into the Adelphi Theatre following a UK tour, as well as Graham Linehan's The Ladykillers which opened at the Gielgud last week. The Old Vic's all-star revival of Noises Off continues until 25 February 2012.
"Nothing can derail Michael Frayn’s masterclass in farce … Frayn’s masterstroke is to make his set-up a farce in its own right … First it frays. Then it implodes. Ironically, the only course of action is to stick firmly to the script. Posner does just that and concocts some superlative sequences: Jamie Glover’s Garry Lejeune waddling about with his laces tied together, Amy Nuttall’s ditsy actress on autopilot falling out-of-sync with actual events, Jonathan Coy’s incessant nosebleeds at any glimpse of violence … Noises Off remains one of the seven wonders of post-war theatre … Celia Imrie disintegrates delightfully as the show grinds on … Janie Dee makes a perfect head-girl as Belinda Blair … Paul Ready is hilariously hapless as stage manager Tim … Most noteworthy… is Robert Glenister’s director Lloyd Dallas … As much a masterpiece as the Mona Lisa, Noises Off is one of the very few plays you must see before you die."
"In Lindsay Posner's deftly engineered revival, Michael Frayn's play feels fresh, witty and polished … We savour the travails of amorous director Lloyd (Robert Glenister), who is juggling two lovers and also two productions … Around him is satisfyingly precise work. There is Celia Imrie as the inept star, Jamie Glover as a lofty leading man and Amy Nuttall as a dim-witted pin-up who spends most of the time in her scanties. Jonathan Coy plays an insecure actor, Janie Dee is an elegant gossip and Karl Johnson as a deaf veteran who is always on the lookout for a dram of whisky … The production does justice to the writing's technical intricacy. It is entertaining and painful - a summation of all that farce can do."
"In his portrait of a slowly disintegrating stage production, Frayn reminds us that beneath the order we seek to impose on our own daily lives lurks a terrifying abyss … If we continue to roar with laughter, not least during the farce's final collapse, it is for several reasons … It is because disaster achieves its own unstoppable momentum. But, deep down, it is also because Frayn taps into our simultaneous delight in, and fear of, panic, disorder and chaos … Celia Imrie lends the sardine-saturated housekeeper a nice hint of demonic lust. Jonathan Coy as a nervous fusspot displays a brow permanently and hilariously furrowed. Karl Johnson as an unreliable toper drifts through the action in a befuddled haze. And both Janie Dee as a supposedly warm-hearted gossip and Robert Glenister as the god-like director clearly draw on a lifetime's observation … All one can say is that, with this and One Man, Two Guvnors running simultaneously, London boasts two of the funniest plays you could ever hope to see and echoes with the sound of laughter."
"Here is a good cast, tightly drilled, working on a five-star set in front of a crowd eager for the thing to be a success … Director Lindsay Posner has done superb work here, without doubt. The play tells the story of a touring theatre company playing a farce … We learn of the players’ loves, lusts and hatreds … Posner is skilfully served by the likes of Robert Glenister (as an exasperated director), Janie Dee (the company darling) and Celia Imrie, who plays the grande dame and ends the night hobbling on one foot … Aisling Loftus and Amy Nuttall provide the lust-interest for Mr Glenister’s groper. Karl Johnson is delicious as a deaf old drunk. It really is all terribly well done … The play is, at its core, an in-joke for theatre professionals. The characters will be more familiar to actors than to civilians, if we can put it like that. That is my only quibble. Otherwise, good stuff."
"Every few seconds I remember some incident from his inspired farce about a farce and start laughing uncontrollably all over again … Theatrical comic bliss seemed to have reached its apogee this year with the National’s brilliant One Man, Two Guvnors. But Frayn’s Noises Off… is even funnier … The comic invention is so prodigal that there are moments when you are no longer certain quite what you are laughing at … Miraculously Posner and his great cast make it every bit as funny as what has gone before. There isn’t a single weak performance, but there is particularly delightful work from Celia Imrie as the lovable old soap star Dotty Otley, who is having a fling with Jamie Glover’s much younger, and hilariously dim, leading man. I also loved Amy Nuttall as a bimbo who is repeatedly stripped to her scanties and keeps losing her contact lenses; and Jonathan Coy as an amiable old luvvie wrongly suspected of sexual double dealing. In these dark, anxious times, Noises Off offers an infallible escape into happiness."
Libby Purves The Times ★★★★★
"Lindsay Posner’s blissful, daftly immaculate rendering of Michael Frayn’s farce about a farce… is the only play to run Act 1 three times … Part of the joy is seeing real actors — Celia Imrie, Janie Dee, Karl Johnson, Jamie Glover, Jonathan Coy, Amy Nuttall — deploying immense skill and discipline to portray fictional actors with neither … Lord of misrule is Karl Johnson as the really old one, Selsdon, who must be kept away from the whisky bottle but once knew Myra Hess … Too many joys to list: Celia Imrie’s face as she sits on a plate of sardines, Jamie Glover hopping upstairs with shoelaces tied together, Aisling Loftus, the assistant stage manager, stiffening as she catches Selsdon’s whisky-breath, Glover falling downstairs. Glenister as the director, Lloyd, is a fount of delight too … As Lloyd says, 'Getting the doors open. And shut. That’s farce. That’s theatre. That’s life!'"
"There has never been a more brilliantly conceived machine for generating helpless audience laughter than Michael Frayn's 1982 classic Noises Off … Mayhem erupts in near-silent slapstick as the feuding actors simultaneously struggle to keep the show on the road and sabotage each other … You feel throughout that this revival is a real labour of love … On both the choreographic and the characterisation fronts, this production delivers … The delicious Celia Imrie brings her wonderful Acorn Antiques credentials to the faintly grand thesp… while Janie Dee is sublime as Belinda Blair … But then everyone is terrific, from Karl Johnson's drunken old actor laddie to Robert Glenister's terminally cynical director to Jonathan Coy who is adorable as a nervous dimwit who doesn't seem to understand the first thing about farce conventions. Unlike Michael Frayn who here offers two uproarious plays for the price of one."
Short of natural disaster or nuclear holocaust, nothing can derail Michael Frayn’s masterclass in farce. Noises Off is so fine-tuned that, even just short of its absolute finest form, as in Lindsay Posner’s nonetheless excellent Old Vic production, it delivers a laugh almost every 30 seconds. There isn’t a stand-up comedian on the planet that can match that for two and a half hours.
Farce usually takes time to wind itself up into orchestrated meltdown. Frayn’s masterstroke is to make his set-up a farce in its own right, namely Nothing On, a fictional stinker of a play chock full of sardines, fake Sheikhs and skimpies.
We see its hapless touring production from three perspectives: on its dress rehearsal the day before opening night, behind the scenes in Ashton-under-Lyne a month on, and, finally, it’s last mangled performance in Stockton-on-Tees. Frayn’s skill is such that the jokes in the first act, which seem so fully-formed, leave gaps for exponential comic exploitation in the second and third. Props go awry, cues are missed and understudies charge onstage misguidedly, but the show, so they say, must go on. First it frays. Then it implodes.
Ironically, the only course of action is to stick firmly to the script. Posner does just that and concocts some superlative sequences: Jamie Glover’s Garry Lejeune waddling about with his laces tied together, Amy Nuttall’s ditsy actress on autopilot falling out-of-sync with actual events, Jonathan Coy’s incessant nosebleeds at any glimpse of violence.
While Posner makes the most of moments, his production sometimes struggles with momentum, particularly in the wordless backstage sequence of the second act. At its best, this should leave us helpless, but here it moves too quickly, blurring the narrative as we’re not sure quite where to look. I suspect blame lies with the narrowness of the Old Vic stage, which prevents the crucial half-second of breathing space.
However, even just short of its summit, Noises Off remains one of the seven wonders of post-war theatre. Posner handles the spoof element with particular relish and the fictional farce is creakier than the boards on which it plays.
In a top-notch cast, Celia Imrie disintegrates delightfully as the show grinds on. Spritely and balletic in the dress, she limps on in Stockton like a horse waiting to be put out of its misery. Janie Dee makes a perfect head-girl as Belinda Blair, desperate to keep the show on the road, Paul Ready is hilariously hapless as stage manager Tim and Karl Johnson’s Selsdon delivers his opening line ("No bars, no burglar alarms") as if it were "To be or not to be."
Most noteworthy, given how difficult the text’s prescriptiveness makes individual interpretation, is Robert Glenister’s director Lloyd Dallas. Usually a sympathetic sane-man drowning in idiots, Glenister makes him a spiteful, snarling failure and adds some rare fight to Frayn’s delirious froth.
As much a masterpiece as the Mona Lisa, Noises Off is one of the very few plays you must see before you die.
Very funny. Celia Imrie is excellent & I didn't find it dated. It was as good as the Savoy Theatre production over 20 years ago. - Celia Langford
09 Feb 12
Cannot believe some of the poor reviews below. This is the funniest play I've ever seen in the west end. Superb comic timing delivered by a top notch cast. My ribs are still aching from laughing so much. Can't wait to go and see it again! - Samuel
04 Feb 12
I think I need therapy having found this play so childish, dated and utterly unfunny given that it seems universally adored by everyone. Perhaps its loved for nostalgic reasons, by people longing for a return to simpler less sophisticated times. It is brilliantly rehearsed with perfect timing that is of great credit to the actors. This compliment paid, the end result is embarrasingly overacted, infantile and the kind of thing that has tourists looking on with disbelief muttering how on earth did they win the war. - Neil
03 Feb 12
This is a little like Fawlty Towers without John Cleese. The set-up of act one is precise, if not funny, and it pays off perfectly in farcical terms in act 2. However, without a central actor with funny bones, like John Cleese, the laughter caoasts at giggles level, never approaching belly laughs. While Jamie Glover proves astonishingly adroit at falling down stairs, he is merely amusing trying to assault his "love rival." Jonathan Coy is the most naturally funny performer, but he is not given the most aggressively farcical moments. It's no surprise to me that on the strength of this kind of writing, Frayn went on to work with John Cleese, the kind of performer it takes to bring belly laughs from Frayn's set-ups. It could be Lenny Henry, James Corden or even Mark Rylance or Simon Russell Beale, but without the comic timing of these kinds of performers, shows like this never take flight. - steveatplays
15 Jan 12
A great show. Saw it years ago and it is sure fire hit every time it is revived. Great cast with special mention to Celia Imrie, Robert Glenister, Amy Nuttal and Janie Dee---a good fun show and great night out - Joe Spiteri
08 Jan 12
I found this to be a much better production than the two previous reviewers. I think it's always a mistake to compare performances performances, and I Robert Glenister did a good job - though VERY different from Paul Eddington. Celia Imrie was a delight, and the script is just wonderful. How someone fell asleep I cannot imagine! - Gill B
04 Jan 12
Fell asleep in the first half and it really did not improve very much in the second half. - Diane
28 Dec 11
Dreadful! Badly miscast and misdirected. What should have had us rolling in the aisles was worse than what it was trying to send. FARCE is one of the hardest tricks to pull off and requires actors with a real gift for comedy. Robert Glenister was just plain bloody awful. When I think back all those years to Paul Eddington's superb performance and later Peter Egan's it makes one weep! Eddington was wonderful as the camp ol' ham of a director. The other players, too, hadn't anything going for them. It was farce with the comedy surgically removed. Enough to put anyone off theatre for life. - rds
27 Dec 11
I've seen many plays in London over the last few years, and for me this is the best for a long time.
I took my parents to see the play for a Christmas present, and, bless her, my mother said her ribs were still hurting from laughter the next day.
The play works like clockwork, but farce needs that tight direction, and this production succeeds wonderfully.
Farce, and indeed theatre, doesn't get better than this. - David
22 Dec 11
Irritating and dull. The odd line sparkles but every character seems so insular and glib. Very disappointing. - addicted to theatre
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