Theatre review: Noises Off

The Old Vic's 2012 production of Noises Off was only the second show I reviewed on this particular blog, so given Michael Frayn's play is regularly described as the greatest farce (and one of the greatest comedies in general) ever written it's probably not that surprising if someone thought it was time for it to return to London. The Lyric Hammersmith is where it premiered in 1982, and as it's currently in a bit of a limbo state between artistic directors Jeremy Herrin has grabbed the opportunity to bring the play back to where it all began. It's a farce within a farce within a farce, as director Lloyd (Lloyd Owen) attempts to preside over the technical rehearsal of Nothing On, a creaky and convoluted farce about to embark on a national tour after nowhere near enough rehearsal. The cast barely know their lines let alone their blocking, but that's not going to cause as many problems as the company's personal lives.

The big gimmick of Noises Off is that it presents the play-within-a-play three times, from different perspectives. The first act's performance of the play as written, and of the various awkward interruptions, is funny in and of itself.

But it's really there to acquaint the audience with the way things are meant to work, as well as with the start of the backstage drama. The second act takes us to a matinée a couple of weeks later, and we watch from behind the scenes as the cast attempt to hit their marks. But venerable character actress Dotty (Future Dame Meera Syal) has been flirting with dim-witted Fred (Jonathan Cullen,) which has enraged her jealous toy-boy boyfriend Garry (Daniel Rigby,) while ingénue Brooke (Amy Morgan) and stage manager Poppy (Lois Chimimba) are fuming at discovering Lloyd's been having affairs with both of them. Meanwhile Belinda (Debra Gillett) is trying to keep alcoholic Selsdon (Simon Rouse) from relapsing and it's looking increasingly like DSM Tim (Enyi Okoronkwo) might have to understudy all the male parts at once.

British farces were a staple of the West End for much of the 20th century, but together with What the Butler Saw a couple of decades earlier, Noises Off forms part of the metatheatrical pair that both provided the apotheosis of the genre, and put the final nail in its coffin. Where Joe Orton deconstructed the dark sexual themes underpinning farce, Frayn deconstructs the mechanics of it. So after the first act shows us (more or less) how things are meant to go and the second pulls back the curtain on how it’s all (barely) kept together, the final act is the final performance, where a single mistake – Dotty dropping a plate of sardines on the floor just before the curtain rises – throws things off to the point that they escalate into chaos. It’s side-splitting, as well as hanging a lantern on just how finely-tuned a plate-spinning act Herrin’s real cast are performing to get the timing just right.

I remember the middle act being the strongest and the last one almost feeling unnecessary, but this production makes the play’s structure make perfect sense; there’s an inevitability to the final night imploding as thoroughly as it does, and after falling down all the stairs of Max Jones’ set numerous times, Rigby’s sweat-soaked Garry descending into an all-out breakdown is the cherry on top of a show that’s become sublimely ridiculous.

If Noises Off is saying anything deeper it’s a kind of love letter to the OTT characters who work in theatre and the people like Poppy and Tim who end up having to prop them up: Syal’s doddery old housekeeper turns into a grande dame of the theatre as soon as she’s out of character, Cullen’s panic-prone leading man wonders who the simpleton everyone else keeps talking about is, and Morgan’s starlet really has learnt her lines – so well that she’s incapable of deviating from them when everything starts to go wrong. But this isn’t really a show that needs to be saying anything more than the obvious; its reputation as the funniest farce ever written is safe in this cast’s hands.

Noises Off by Michael Frayn is booking until the 27th of July at the Lyric Hammersmith.

Running time: 2 hours 15 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Helen Maybanks.