Noises Off Review: ‘the latest production is dazzlingly done’
"The cast really is to die for," writes Simon Button.
Michael Frayn’s Noises Off is a rollercoaster of hilarity that lives or dies on the strength of its cast. I’m happy to say that the cast of the 40th-anniversary production, stopping off at London’s Phoenix Theatre after a UK tour, is magnificent.
Felicity Kendal is a master of befuddlement, that deep voice of hers going lower with each line reading and at 76 she trots around the stage with the energy of someone at least half that age. Tracy-Ann Oberman is a great actress who, in what here is a play within a play, manages to be a truly terrible one – a whirlwind of flirty luviness in garish purple and a self-deluded thespian whose every movement is overdone.
Amongst the fellas, Matthew Kelly is such a convincing drunkard you worry about the state of his liver. Alexander Hanson is a womanising, pretentious director (he calls everyone ‘Love’ or ‘Honey’ regardless of gender) whose pain we feel every time one of the actors he’s shepherding through a farce called ‘Nothing On’ mangles a bit of dialogue or misses a cue.
And Joseph Millson, as one of the highly-strung stars of ‘Nothing On’, is a brilliant physical comedian whose every pratfall or trip seems so perilously real you want to yell out ‘Hello! health and safety!” whilst dialling 999 on his behalf.
Directed at a cracking pace by Lindsay Posner, Frayn’s 1982 masterwork is the original play that goes wrong, or rather it’s about a play that goes wrong horridly, hilariously so as sardines are waylaid, props are smashed, men lose their trousers and women lose most of their clothes, performers tumble down stairs and performances are given that make ‘Acorn Antiques’ seem like Chekhov or Ibsen.
The first act is a tech rehearsal in Weston-super-Mare, the second goes behind the scenes of a matinee in Ashton-under-Lyme, and the third focuses on a late-run show in Stockton-on-Tees where tempers are frayed and everything descends into chaos.
Is it sacrilege to say I’ve always found the third act to be a bit tiresome and repetitive, repeating cock-ups we’ve already seen at least twice? It isn’t helped here by the fact it comes after a long pause where the curtain is down as the scenery is changed, breaking the momentum of that riotous second act. A revolving stage would easily solve the problem.
Despite being ahead of its time in its meta-exploration of the world of theatre, the play also feels past its prime to me. It holds no surprises if you’ve seen it before (which I have, many times) and because of the forensic precision of the writing it’s impossible to alter or update.
But the latest production is dazzlingly done, its faithfulness to the original vision is a theatrical rarity these days and the cast really is to die for. What I wouldn’t give to have been seeing it for the first time.
Rating: 4/5
Noises Off is at the Phoenix Theatre, London, until 11 March. Get tickets here.