Noises Off – Theatre by the Lake, Keswick

More than forty years since the first production of Michael Frayn’s Noises Off, it must take the credit – or blame – for spawning a whole species of theatrical disaster farces. These take their inspiration from Shakespeare, Hitchcock, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Jane Austen, traditional pantomime, and many other sources, but they are in debt to Frayn for their central concept: an attempt by a hapless theatre company to stage a play in which almost everything goes amiss.

Nothing On, the comedy which the touring company are attempting to stage, is in the great tradition of English farce, such as those staged at the Whitehall Theatre in the 1960’s. As such, it has a highly convoluted plot, stereotypical characters, wardrobe malfunctions, mistaken identities, horseplay and lots of physical comedy. In Act One, we watch the last gasp dress rehearsal of the opening scene of the show. The set has a plethora of doors, and the props feature an excess of sardines. This play-within-a-play is directed by Lloyd Dallas, played with effortless disdain by Harry Long, who struggles to herd the constantly straying and distracted ensemble. He struggles even more to contain his frustration and irascibility at their incompetence. It also soon becomes clear that Lloyd has been flexing his skills as an unofficial intimacy co-ordinator with more than one of his younger female colleagues.

In the second act, we view the matinee production of Nothing On at the Theatre Royal, Ashton-under-Lyne, from backstage. After a month of provincial touring, the show has lost its lustre, and the cracks in the company are widening. Actors waiting in the wings, and making their entrances and exits, continue their dalliances and increasingly violent disputes while the farce – much of it familiar from the first act – is performed behind the back wall of the set. The one unifying factor for the warring players is the need to keep ageing alcoholic actor Selsdon Mowbray, played by a louche Russell Richardson, away from a bottle of whisky. The whisky, a cactus, a lost contact lens, and a bunch of flowers add to the complications for those juggling between their stage characters, and their problems as actors in a fast-dissolving disaster. As a backstage silence is essential, much of the comedy is delivered as a comic charade or dumb show.

The third act puts the audience back into their usual view of the stage where the performers of Nothing On drag their disintegrating show to another regional theatre, as the tour nears its end. The script is now in shreds, the props seem to have a mind of their own, and the actors barely salvage any semblance of the original material. Belinda, played by a rarely unruffled Claire-Louise English, tries to coax her battered colleagues towards any sort of conclusion, bearing no relation to the rest of the show. The confusion ramps up to a chaotic crescendo and a desperate lunge for the final blackout.

Noises Off is a challenge to stage. It requires enormous skill and precision from the actors, and brilliant co-ordination and choreography of the props and set. It also requires a set which can be turned inside out, not once but twice. Set Designer Clio Van Aerde has achieved this without the use of a full revolve, by cleverly segmenting and jig-sawing elements of the construction onto wheeled platforms. They pirouette neatly to separate and re-align perfectly within a few minutes. The stage crew fully deserve their bow at the end of the show. In a play about a play it even makes sense to show the inner workings of the show business.

The music for Nothing On is spot-on 1960’s TV sitcom theme tune fare. The music for Noises Off varies from soft jazz to blousy R&B, playing on repeat ad nauseum. There are few other technical points of criticism but this one – with the audience fascinated by the set change – is worth revisiting.

In any farce, much of the comedy depends on the physical catastrophes befalling the characters. Credit for this goes to Haruka Kuroda, who masterminds the fight and movement. The heavy lifting on stage was led by George Kemp, as ingenue Gary LeJeune. His ascent of a staircase with shoes tied together deserves an Olympic medal. Hisham Abdel Razek, as fainting Freddie Fellows, deserves a St. John’s Ambulance Award. Hilary Maclean’s disintegrating Dotty Otley provides the touchstone for the comic heart of the play, harking back to household names in character roles. She evokes sympathy for her desperation to banish the albatross of “doors and sardines” as she drags them through one regional theatre after another. Ailsa Joy has less scope in her role as “doors to manual” love interest Brooke Ashton, but her automaton inflexibility in almost any situation creates the chaos that others exploit to comic effect.

Actors love Noises Off for the cruel truths about their profession, including the gradual descent from universal love to universal acrimony. Frayn has captured the essence of theatre, which often hovers between brilliance and disaster, dependent on the fragile relationships between those on and off the boards. It is tragedy played as comedy through the lens of farce, and it is very funny.