Noises Off

Noises Off

Poster for the 2001 Broadway revival

Written by

Michael Frayn

Characters

Garry Lejeune
Dotty Otley
Lloyd Dallas
Belinda Blair
Frederick Fellowes
Brooke Ashton
Tim Allgood
Selsdon Mowbray
Poppy Norton-Taylor

Date premiered

1982

Place premiered

Lyric Theatre, London

Subject

Play within a play

Genre

Comedy

Noises Off is a 1982 play by the English playwright Michael Frayn. The idea for it came in 1970,
when Frayn was watching from the wings a performance of The Two of Us, a farce that he had
written for Lynn Redgrave. He said, "It was funnier from behind than in front, and I thought that one
day I must write a farce from behind."[1] The prototype, a short-lived one-act play called Exits, was

written and performed in 1977. At the request of his associate, Michael Codron, Frayn expanded this
into what would become Noises Off. It takes its title from the theatrical stage direction indicating
sounds coming from offstage.

Characters of Noises Off

Lloyd Dallas: The director of a play-within-the-play, called Nothing On. Temperamental. Part
of a love triangle involving Poppy and Brooke.

Dotty Otley: A late-middle-aged actress. Forgetful. Has a romantic interest in Garry, and
provokes him by showing interest in Freddy.

Garry Lejeune: A stuttering actor, easily fired up. Has a romantic interest in Dotty, and is
driven by jealousy to attack Freddy repeatedly. His speech impediment disappears onstage.
Constantly stutters and ends sentences with "you know..."

Brooke Ashton: A young inexperienced actress from London. She pays no attention to
others, either in performance or backstage. She rarely takes direction, and persists in role
regardless of any interruption. She is always losing her contact lenses. Part of the LloydPoppy
Brooke love triangle.

Frederick (Freddy) Fellowes: Has a serious fear of violence and blood. Gets nosebleeds
easily. Lacks confidence and is rather dim-witted and pompous.

Belinda Blair: Cheerful and sensible, a reliable actress. Has a rather protective attitude
towards Freddy.

Poppy Norton-Taylor: Assistant Stage Manager. Emotional and over-sensitive, and envious
of Brooke, whom she understudies. Part of the Lloyd-Poppy-Brooke love triangle.

Selsdon Mowbray: Elderly and with actorly mannerisms. If he is not in sight while rehearsing,
the stage crew must find him before he finds the whisky.

Timothy Allgood: An over-worked Stage Manager. Understudies Selsdon and Freddy.

Characters of the play-within-the-play, Nothing On[edit]

Mrs. Clackett (Dotty): Housekeeper for the Brents' home in England. Hospitable, though
slow.

Roger (Garry): Estate agent looking to let Flavia's and Philip's house.

Vicki (Brooke): Works for the tax authorities and is trying to woo Roger.

Philip Brent (Freddy): Lives out of the country with his wife Flavia to avoid paying taxes and
is on a secret visit.

Flavia Brent (Belinda): Philip Brent's wife. She is dependable, though not one for household
duties.

Burglar (Selsdon): Old man in his seventies, breaking into the Brents' house.

Sheikh (Freddy): Interested in renting the house.

Plot[edit]
Each of the three acts of Noises Off contains a performance of the first act of a play within a play, a
poor farce called Nothing On. The three acts of Noises Off are each named "Act One" on the
contents page of the script, though they are labelled normally in the body of the script; and the

programme for Noises Off will include, provided by the author, a comprehensive programme for the
Weston-super-Mare run of Nothing On, including spoof advertisements and acknowledgements to
the providers of mysterious props that do not actually appear (e.g. stethoscope, hospital trolley, and
straitjacket). Nothing is seen of the rest of Nothing On.
Nothing On is the type of play in which young girls run about in their underwear, old men drop their
trousers, and many doors continually bang open and shut. It is set in "a delightful 16thcentury posset mill",[2][3] modernised by the current owners and available to let while they are abroad;
the fictional playwright is appropriately named Robin Housemonger.
Act One is set at the dress rehearsal at the (fictional)[4] Grand Theatre in Weston-super-Mare; the
cast are hopelessly unready, and baffled by entrances and exits, missed cues, missed lines, and
bothersome props, including several plates of sardines.
Act Two shows a Wednesday matine performance one month later,[5] at the (again fictional)
[6]
Theatre Royal in Ashton-under-Lyne. In this act, the play is seen from backstage, providing a view
that emphasises the deteriorating relationships between the cast that lead to offstage shenanigans
and onstage bedlam. The play falls into disorder before the curtain falls.
In Act Three, we see a performance near the end of the ten-week run, at the (still fictional) Municipal
Theatre in Stockton-on-Tees, when personal friction has continued to increase. The actors remain
determined at all costs to cover up the mounting series of mishaps, but it is not long before the plot
has to be abandoned entirely and the more coherent characters are obliged to take a lead in adlibbing somehow towards some sort of end.
Much of the comedy emerges from the subtle variations in each version as character flaws play off
each other off-stage to undermine on-stage performance, with a great deal of slapstick. The contrast
between players' on-stage and off-stage personalities is also a source of comic dissonance.

Production history[edit]
The play premired at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, London in 1982, directed by Michael
Blakemore and starring Patricia Routledge, Paul Eddington, and Nicky Henson. It opened to
universally ecstatic reviews and shortly after transferred to the Savoy Theatre in the West End,
where it ran until 1987 with five successive casts. It won the Evening Standard Award for Best
Comedy.
On 11 December 1983, a production directed again by Blakemore and starring Dorothy
Loudon, Victor Garber, Brian Murray, Deborah Rush, Douglas Seale, and Amy Wright opened in
New York City at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre, on Broadway, where it ran for 553 performances. It
earned Tony Award nominations for Best Play and for Blakemore, Rush, and Seale, and won
a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Ensemble.
Noises Off has become a staple of both professional theatre companies and community theatres on
both sides of the Atlantic. On 5 October 2000, the National Theatre in London mounted a revival,
directed by Jeremy Sams and starring Patricia Hodge, Peter Egan and Aden Gillett, that ran for two
years, transferring to the Piccadilly Theatre in the West End on 14 May 2001 with Lynn
Redgrave and Stephen Mangan replacing Hodge and Egan, respectively. Sams' production
transferred to Broadway, again at the Brooks Atkinson, on 1 November 2001, with Patti
LuPone, Peter Gallagher, Faith Prince, T.R. Knight, and Katie Finneran. The production was
nominated for a Tony and Drama Desk Award as Best Revival of a Play, and Finneran was named
Best Featured Actress by both groups.
Frayn has repeatedly rewritten the play over the years. The last revision was in 2000 at the request
of Jeremy Sams. There are numerous differences between the 1982 and 2000 scripts. Some new
sequences have been added (e.g., an introduction to Act Three, in which Tim, the Company Stage
Manager, and Poppy, the Assistant Stage Manager, make simultaneous apologies the former in
front of the curtain, the latter over the PA for the delay in the performance). Other sequences have
been altered or cut entirely. References that tend to date the play (such as Mrs. Clackett's to the
Brents having colour television) have been eliminated or rewritten.
The most recent revival ran from 3 December 2011 to 10 March 2012 at the Old Vic Theatre,
directed by Lindsay Posner and starring Jonathan Coy, Janie Dee, Robert Glenister, Jamie
Glover, Celia Imrie, Karl Johnson, Aisling Loftus, Amy Nuttall and Paul Ready. This production
transferred to the Novello Theatre in the West End from 24 March to 30 June 2012, and then toured
Britain and Ireland with a different cast.

Film adaptation[edit]
Main article: Noises Off (film)

In 1992, the play was adapted for the screen by Marty Kaplan. The film, directed by Peter
Bogdanovich and starring Carol Burnett, Michael Caine, Christopher Reeve, John Ritter, Nicollette
Sheridan, Denholm Elliott, Julie Hagerty,Mark Linn-Baker and Marilu Henner, received mixed
reviews, with many critics noting it was too much of a theatrical piece to translate well to the screen. [7]
[8]
Frank Rich, who had called it "the funniest play written in my lifetime", [9]wrote that the film is "one of
the worst ever made".[10]

NOISES OFF (1992)

Michael Frayn

Noises Of is a 1982 play by the English playwright Michael Frayn. The

idea for it came in 1970, when Frayn was watching from the wings a
performance of The Two of Us, a farce that he had written for Lynn Redgrave.
He said, "It was funnier from behind than in front, and I thought that one day
I must write a farce from behind." The prototype, a short-lived one-act play
called Exits, was written and performed in 1977. At the request of his
associate, Michael Codron, Frayn expanded this into what would
become Noises Off. It takes its title from the theatrical stage direction
indicating sounds coming from offstage.
What is 'Noise Of' About?
Noises Of is a play within a play. It is about an ambitious director and his
troupe of mediocre actors. The cast and crew are putting together a silly sex

comedy titled, Nothing On - a single-set farce in which lovers frollic, doors

slam, clothes are tossed away, and embarrassing hi-jinks ensue.
The three acts of Noises Of expose different phases of the disastrous
show, Nothing On:

Act One: On stage during dress rehearsal.

Act Two: Backstage during a matinee performance.

Act Three: On stage during a delightfully ruined performance.

Act One: The Dress Rehearsal

While the impatient director, Lloyd Dallas, trudges through the opening
scene of Noises On, the actors keep breaking character. Dottie keeps
forgetting when to take her plate of sardines. Garry keeps challenging the
stage directions in the script.
Brooke is clueless about her fellow performers, and constantly loses her
contact lens.
Act One lampoons the common problems which typically occur during the
rehearsal process:

Forgetting your lines.

Second guessing your director.

Misplacing your props.

Missing your entrances.

Falling in love with fellow cast members.

Yes, aside from from all of the physical comedy, the conflict of Noises Of is
intensified when several of the theater romances turn sour. Because of
jealousy, double-crosses, and misunderstandings, tensions mount, and the
performances of Nothing On go from bad to worse to wonderfully awful.
Act Two: Backstage Antics
The second act of Noises Of takes place entirely backstage. Traditionally,
the entire set is rotated to reveal the behind the scenes events which unfold.
It is fun to watch the same scene of Nothing On from a different
perspective.
For anyone who has been backstage during a show - especially when
something goes wrong - Act Two is bound to conjure a flood of hilarious
memories. Despite the characters backstabbing one another, they somehow
manage to get through their scene. But that's not the case with the final act
of the play.

Act Three: When Everything Goes Wrong

In Act Three of Noises Of, the cast of Nothing On has been performing their
show for nearly three months. They are seriously burnt out.
When Dottie makes a few mistakes during her opening scene, she just begins
to ramble, making up lines from off the top of her head. The rest of the
characters then make a series of mistakes: Garry can't improvise his way out
of a paper bag. Brooke doesn't pay attention to the changes that are rapidly
occurring -- she just keeps doing her lines, even when they aren't
appropriate. And the veteran actor, Selsdon, can't keep away from booze. By
the play's end, their show is a comical catastrophe -- and the audience is
rolling in the aisles, loving every moment.
If you have never experienced theater as an actor or a crew member, then
perhaps Noises Of is simply an entertaining show with a lot of laughs.
However, for those of us who "tread the boards," Michael Frayn's Noises
Of might very well be the funniest play ever written.
PLOT
Each of the three acts of Noises Off contains a performance of the first
act of a play within a play, a poor farce called Nothing On. The three acts
of Noises Off are each named "Act One" on the contents page of the script,
though they are labelled normally in the body of the script; and the program
for Noises Off will include, provided by the author, a comprehensive program
for the Weston-super-Mare run of Nothing On, including spoof advertisements
and acknowledgements to the providers of mysterious props that do not
actually appear (e.g. stethoscope, hospital trolley, and straitjacket). Nothing
is seen of the rest of Nothing On.
Nothing On is the type of play in which young girls run about in their
underwear, old men drop their trousers, and many doors continually bang
open and shut. It is set in "a delightful 16th-century posset mill", modernized
by the current owners and available to let while they are abroad; the fictional
playwright is appropriately named Robin Housemonger.
Act One is set at the dress rehearsal at the (fictional)[4] Grand
Theatre in Weston-super-Mare; the cast are hopelessly unready, and baffled
by entrances and exits, missed cues, missed lines, and bothersome props,
including several plates of sardines.
Act Two shows a Wednesday matine performance one month later,
[5] at the (again fictional)[6] Theatre Royal in Ashton-under-Lyne. In this act,
the play is seen from backstage, providing a view that emphasises the
deteriorating relationships between the cast that lead to offstage
shenanigans and onstage bedlam. The play falls into disorder before the
curtain falls.

In Act Three, we see a performance near the end of the ten-week run,
at the (still fictional) Municipal Theatre in Stockton-on-Tees, when personal
friction has continued to increase. The actors remain determined at all costs
to cover up the mounting series of mishaps, but it is not long before the plot
has to be abandoned entirely and the more coherent characters are obliged
to take a lead in ad-libbing somehow towards some sort of end.
Much of the comedy emerges from the subtle variations in each
version as character flaws play off each other off-stage to undermine onstage performance, with a great deal of slapstick. The contrast between
players' on-stage and off-stage personalities is also a source of comic
dissonance.

SUMMARY
Noises Of begins the night before a regional company of a new sex
farce, Nothing On, opens for its first performance in Weston-super-Mare.
Director Lloyd Dallas is trying to get his cast through a technical dress
rehearsal, but they keep interrupting it with questions and problems. The
plot of the first act of Nothing On is that the housekeeper of a country home,
Mrs. Clackett (played by Dotty), is trying to enjoy some sardines in front of
the television. She is interrupted by Roger Tramplemain (played by Garry),
who is escorted by Vicki (portrayed by Brooke). Roger and Vicki want a
private rendezvous and ask Mrs. Clackett not to tell anyone theyre there. As
they sneak off to one of the bedrooms, Philip and Flavia (portrayed by Freddy
and Belinda) arrive to hide from impending tax fraud charges. They likewise
ask Mrs. Clackett to keep their presence a secret, and the result is a serious
of mistaken identities, slamming doors, and lost plates of sardines. The act
ends when a Burglar (played by Selsdon) is discovered by the group and
turns out to be Vickis father.
The first interruptions in the rehearsal come from Dotty, who cannot
keep her lines straight and when to pick up and put down props. Dotty has
funded the production and given herself a starring role. The next interruption
comes from Garry, who expresses concern about the lack of rehearsal time.
When Freddy and Belinda make their entrance, their door will not close while
another one upstairs wont open. Lloyd asks Poppy, the assistant stage
manager, to find Tim, the stage manager. Tim has not slept in two days
because he was building the set and begins working on the doors. During the
break, Lloyd and the cast become concerned that no one can find Selsdon.
Poppy looks for him and worries that an old man the police found in the
gutter might be Selsdon. During this explanation, Selsdon arrives and is told
to wait backstage for his entrance. Meanwhile, Belinda reveals that Garry
and Dotty are having a romantic relationship.
After the play resumes, Freddy interrupts again because he wants a
motivation for taking some props offstage. When he persists, Lloyd blows up
at him about the lack of time remaining. Belinda tells Lloyd that Freddys wife
left him, so Lloyd gives Freddy the motivation he requested. Later, the

rehearsal halts because Brooke loses one of her contact lenses. In the
ensuing search, Poppy gets knocked in the head. Freddy, who is extremely
sensitive to physical violence, gets a nosebleed and feels faint. When the
play resumes, Selsdon is late for his entrance and the cast must retrace its
steps. They finally rehearse a larger piece of the play... (The entire section is
1084 words.)