Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Cast: Maureen Beattie, Neil Pearson, David Bark-Jones, Thomasin Rand, Danielle Flett, Chris Larkin, Sasha Waddell, Simon Bubb, Geoffrey Freshwater.
What Noises Off brings to the stage, is the sense of what regional theatre really is like, fly by the seats mayhem, utter confusion and misunderstanding and above all just the most amazing and side splittingly funny couple of hours you can ever hope to have in a theatre.
The Lowry in Salford is the latest venue to host Michael Frayn’s incredible farce and with a cast that you just want to carry on forever, causing mayhem and theatrical anarchy as they go.
The last time audiences in the North-West were privileged to have this play performed was quite some time back and that may be why it retains its huge popularity and following. With the Liverpool Playhouse hosting Noises Of last time with Matthew Cottle, Geraldine McNulty and the fabulous Laura Doddington in amongst the cast, it fell to the equally auspicious surroundings of The Lowry to showcase this three act play made up completely of three first acts but seen as the company makes its way round towns and cities of England and as their gung-ho spirit starts to magically start to disintegrate into wonderful absurdity.
At all times this piece of theatre is like watching the finest Philharmonic orchestra in the world, everything is handled with the greatest belief that it will work, that the start and finish will be perfect and what goes on between simply the greatest farce ever put on stage. In truth it shouldn’t work, the plot so carefully considered that to work out the intricacy of it all takes a University degree, a boat load of Russian Caravan tea intravenously attached to the forearm and a paper and pencil which has been loaned by the Soviet Space Agency.
With the much loved actor Neil Pearson of Drop The Dead Donkey fame heading the cast, there really isn’t anything that can ever go wrong for this Lindsay Posner production, apart from what can really go wrong for any touring cast. The sarcastic, lothario director with higher aspirations on his mind and juggling two ladies’ affections in the company, a leading man terrified of the sight of blood, portrayed by the marvellous Chris Larkin who thrilled theatre audiences in Yes Prime Minister, the young eager back stage dogsbody who at every turn you just want to laugh and cry with, played by the fantastic relative newcomer Danielle Fleet and one of the great comic creations of all time…Dotty Otley performed with such consummate skill and unmitigated imaginative beauty by Maureen Beattie, all offer and encompass what makes farce so good.
The cast encapsulates what farce means to spectators, it offers perhaps, certainly to British audiences, the idea that life is absurd, random, a series of accidents leading to one losing somewhere along the line their trousers as well as their dignity. Nowhere is this more in tune with British psyche than in Michael Frayn’s outrageously excellent and superbly written play Noises Off.
Ian D. Hall