Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Caitlin Clough, Jack Murray, Karl Falconer, Rhea Little, Sam Walton, Stewart McDonald, Abi Taylor Jones, Siobhan Crinson, Albert Hastings.
Quite simply you can never have too much of Michael Frayn’s Noises Off placed before you. It is a sumptuous comedy banquet that keeps giving and each serving is captured differently as the last. It is rightly regarded as one of the finest stage comedies of its time but it has to be captured right, one person miscast, one mistimed moment and the momentum goes completely. It is a play that is so giving and yet one wrong step, it can be a cruel mistress and leave the feeling of undiluted suffering in the audience and it takes real guts to even attempt to put it on. Thankfully PurpleCoat productions weren’t put off by the thought and gave a performance of high ability and virtue at the Arts Centre on Myrtle Street.
The pressure cooker of theatre life, the absolute need to get everything spot on, to hit the right mark at the right place and word is something that even perhaps of watching theatre all your life can still be one that amazes you. The dedication, the art, the skill to work out which door, which sardine to hold and carry on as if nothing ever goes wrong is a feat worthy of defeating Hercules; all is placed before you as one by one each character is tested beyond the call of duty
One of the very few arguments against Noises Off is the use of an extra interval, even if it is a short one, it can lead to a few heads being scratched and puzzled looks upon faces in the crowd as they try to fathom out what is happening. Of course that always becomes abundantly clear, however for the uninitiated it can be a bind and a struggle against fidgeting. The way PurpleCoat Productions got round this and kept the audience amused was spot on and showed an almost silhouette look to the going’s on in a company setting up a stage show. The graceful look of the swan as it floats serenely up a river but paddling like mad in the undertow is one way of commentating on it and for that again PurpleCoat and Karl Falconer must be applauded.
In a production such as Noises Off, one in which success or failure hangs on each other’s responses, especially in the Second Act in which the farce gets delivered at a frantic and unstoppable pace, it always feels as if nobody should get a mention above anybody else. However not withstanding that, high praise must go to Caitlin Clough as the lynch pin to the play Dotty Otley and whose delivery was as exceptional as the great Maureen Beattie’s in the national tour in 2013, Siobhan Crinson as the much put upon Tina (a delightful twist to the supposed gender of the character) and Karl Falconer himself as the jealous and bitter Gary Lejeune.
When captured just right Noises Off is a must see of the stage, its look at humanity through the close relationships and destructive jealousies that are forged in the heat of theatre makes it exceptional. PurpleCoat Productions have added immensely to that rich history.
Ian D. Hall