Circus routine rather than theatre: Noises Off reviewed

Michael Frayn’s backstage comedy, Noises Off, is the theatre’s answer to Trooping the Colour. Everyone agrees that it’s an amazing display of synchronised choreography but does anyone actually want to see it? Yes, to judge by the press-night crowd at the Garrick. The joint was packed.

The show opens at the dress rehearsal of a bedroom farce where an incompetent actress, Dotty Otley, is listening to advice from an exhausted but infinitely patient director. She worries that she hasn’t got her lines right. A lot of them ‘had a very familiar ring’, the director assures her. The gentle wit of these passages is soon overtaken by physical antics as the production encounters endless technical snags. Cues are missed. Props go astray. Oily sardines are upended over the playing area. An alcoholic actor playing the Burglar locks himself in the gents. A flask of extra-strong whisky is passed around, which turns sober thespians into combative drunkards. Sexual rivalries add spice to the mix. The director is dating two members of the company at once and he recruits a wardrobe manager to send tokens of affection which end up in the wrong hands.

In the second act, with the set reversed so that the backstage area is presented to the audience, a comic ballet takes place during which the performers pursue physical vendettas while attempting to fulfil their roles in the on-stage farce as well. The storyline is all but impossible to follow because each of the eight actors is playing two characters at once. Inevitably one’s eyes turn to the elaborate stunts which the director, Jeremy Herrin, orchestrates with astonishing precision. It’s like watching the internal workings of some hyper-efficient German automobile. Easy to admire but hard to love, perhaps.