Michael Frayn’s most celebrated play was first staged over forty years ago and is widely regarded as one of the best and most enduringly popular stage comedies of recent times. It is a chaotic yet clever play-within-a-play: a touring theatre company, led by a volatile director at the end of his emotional and professional tether, are hopelessly unprepared for their imminent first performance of “Nothing On”, an English bedroom farce. Chaos ensues as the production gradually falls apart, exposing the actors’ petty conflicts and hidden secrets in the process.

So what makes “Noises Off” such an enduring success, more than four decades on? The play’s innovative structure means that we see the same scenes from the play-within-the-play several times: a final rehearsal just before opening night, a midweek matinée a month later, and the closing performance at the end of the tour. However, in Act Two, designer Simon Higlett’s clever coup-de-thêatre means the stage is reversed: the set cleverly pivots to allow us to see the same scenes from the perspective of backstage, where the cracks begin to show for an increasingly fragmented and fractious cast and crew. By the third act, we can anticipate and enjoy many of the same lines and jokes, except by now, the cast have begun to ad-lib and improvise at will as “Nothing On” limps and lumbers through its final performance. As a theatrical trick, it works very well, and Frayn’s script is suitably sharp, slick and witty.

Yet there is an art to creating this chaos on stage, and an ironic illusion in making it look authentically chaotic. Director Lindsay Posner has assembled a cast with a strong pedigree and a wealth of television and stage experience who manage to pull this trick off admirably. Simon Shepherd is wonderfully neurotic as director Lloyd Dallas, Liza Goddard impresses as Dotty Ottley, the hard-pressed housekeeper, while Paul Bradley adds a comic turn as the alcoholic burglar, Selsdon Mowbray. They are all instantly recognisable from a host of daytime and peak-time TV shows over the last thirty years, yet they bring energy and a huge sense of fun to their roles here. But in truth, the whole cast embraces the delightfully daft antics with such enthusiasm and more than a hint of slapstick. It is very funny.

Parts of this feel rather anachronistic, though. Yes, there is much to celebrate about Frayn’s play, but this is also a performance where an attractive young woman runs around in her underwear for most of the evening while old men’s trousers repeatedly fall down. It does feel at times like we have stumbled into an episode of Benny Hill. Judging by the audience tonight, most of them would remember Benny Hill too. I wonder if they shared my slight discomfort at such outdated antics in 2024? And yet surely this is one of the central dilemmas of art: whether to continue to celebrate and perform plays which no longer fully reflect or represent the society we see around us today. Perhaps there should be scope and space in theatre to reflect all tastes and forms? Perhaps it is these very discussions which we should embrace, rather than censor or avoid? Society has come a long way since 1982, as a younger audience will quickly realise.

“Noises Off” is both a celebration and satire of theatre, a clever ode to its charm, its appeal, and its eccentricities. It still has its place.

★★★★☆   Tony Clarke  14 February 2024