23 August – 9 September
All the world’s a farce. They have their entrances and their many, many exits and Noises Off, the grandaddy of all farces, has more than its fair share of farcical tropes, misunderstandings, taboos transgressed, illicit affairs and ample amounts of slapstick. (Group noun for a bunch of slapstick? A pratfall, perhaps?) And since Michael Frayn’s blockbuster appeared in 1980 it has been revived and revived and revived until it squeaks. And it would be as hilarious today as it was then were it not for a few problems.
Plays having being going wrong for a long, long time. From the rude mechanicals in Shakespeare to Michael Green’s Art of Coarse Acting to Noises Off to The Play that Goes Wrong which has pretty much cornered this diminishing market. And since The Play that Goes Wrong has gone wrong so well, so relentlessly and so recently it can’t help throwing our present play slightly in the shade. A little as Airplane did to Mel Brooks. The ‘Goes Wrong’ plays are intricately made but are fundamentally the same joke over and joke – things go wrong. Noises Off is more nuanced as we see two comedies performed simultaneously, a farce called “Nothing On” a pretty much bog-standard mid-england trouser-dropping farce and “Noises Off” the farce about the farce, the back stage traumas of putting on a play and all its components troubles. But the farce being performed is dated (aforementioned trouser dropping, scantily clad sex objects, predatory males and a funny foreigner) and it’s now not entirely clear whether we are laughing at those targets or laughing at the play’s parody of old farces where such things used to be targets. And, as farces themselves seem to have faded into the orchestra pit over the years, do people now understand what is being sent up?
The performers performing the performers hold their own well enough. Matthew Kelly twinkles delightfully and Simon Coates has a deft handle on his character. Liza Goddard has acres of TV comedy experience she brings to bear and Simon Shepherd, as the surprisingly patient director, helms the play within the play. Lindsay Posner helms the play without the play and produces something, though technically adept, is tonally unsure.
I laughed. I laughed a lot. It’s impossible not to as the writing modulates so perfectly. It’s like watching a master craftsman slowly and tantalising unveiling his masterpiece, which, I guess we are. And the writing does most of the heavy lifting here.
Go see it, though. It is one of the greats of British theatre and goes wrong so very, very well.
★★★☆☆ Sam Bolton 30 August 2023
Photography credit @ Pamela Raith Photography
