Noises Off

Nothing dates so rapidly as comedy. A revival of a farce that was first staged forty years ago should be doomed to stony faced failure. And yet Michael Frayn's Noises Off continues to be performed all over the world, and continues to have audiences howling with laughter. One can't but help admire the ingenuity of its construction, much in same way you can admire Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors. You can marvel at its audacious innovation, much in the same way you can admire the audacity of Chapin's Great Dictator. But why - unlike Shakespeare or Chaplin - is the play still so straightforwardly funny?

Much of its success is due to that which it takes aim at. The British farce was a stable of popular theatre in the 50s and 60s, epitomised by those at the Whitehall Theatre in London invariably starring Brian Rix. Much like the uniquely British, and uniquely awful, sex comedy films of the 70s, they invariably featured scantily-clan young ladies, debagged middle aged men, and a lot of door slamming. By the 1980s, the universal disapproval of theatre critics had all but seen them off. Frayn's genius was a take a swipe at this disreputable art form, offering up a farce about putting on a farce. The jokes are funny because they are tired and hackneyed, not in spite of it. When the woman runs around in her undies, and the man loses his trousers, we are permitted to laugh because we are laughing at the convention as much as the foolishness on stage. To consider the play dated misses the point - the play is about the phenomenon of how plays date. Frayn well and truly has his cake and eats it.

In the same way no one sensibly considers whether Hamlet or The Cherry Orchard are any good, therefore, a review of Noises Off has to be all about how well this lot did, this time. The touring iteration of the latest revival has an almost entirely different cast from director Lindsay Posner's run at the Phoenix Theatre, with Norwich only its third outing. As such, I got the sense the cast had not yet entirely settled into their roles, but for most part this was a thoroughly entertaining, and mercilessly funny, night at the theatre.

Liza Goddard opened the play with a hesitant and faltering performance that must have had those in the audience unfamiliar with the play worrying for her well-being, before Simon Shepherd bellows at her from the back of auditorium. The central conceit thus revealed - we are watching a rehearsal for a bad play, performed badly, going badly wrong - the opening act gradually introduces the whole cast. Along with Matthew Kelly, Goddard and Shepherd get top billing, but only because they are the best known cast members. This is a truly ensemble effort, with everyone getting their fair share of comedy business, and no weak links in the team. Dan Fredenburgh was particularly strong as Garry Lejeune, lapsing into Fawlty-like bouts of incandescent rage while trying to remain composed as the philandering Roger Tramplemain. He and Lisa Ambalavanor made for a delightful double act, with Ambalavanor's Brooke Ashton getting some of the biggest laughs of the night by obstinately sticking to the script while all about her dissolved into chaos. Simon Coates nicely underplayed Frederick Fellowes, the dim-witted jobbing actor constantly seeking motivation, while Lucy Robinson came into her own in the third act, as diva Belinda Blair tried to improvise her way out if trouble.

Although frequently quoted as the progenitor for the likes of The Play that Goes Wrong, what sets Noises Off apart is the focus on character. Doors jam and handles fall off, but for the most part disaster stems from inflated egos, petty rivalries and straightforward complacency. As such, it touches on universal failure in a way that is more substantive than the prat falls and double takes might lead you to think. If I have a misgiving about this production, it is that much of this subtext falls by the wayside. If I didn't already know the play, would I have twigged that Lejeune was Dotty Otley's toyboy? Given the way Goddard plays Dotty, does the affair even make sense? The finely orchestrated axe welding of the second act is impressively choreographed and funny, but without that knowledge it’s not very clear why everyone is doing what they are doing. When stage hand Nikhita Lesler made what should have been a show stopping revelation it was rather lost in all the commotion

Perhaps Lindsay Posner simply decided the back story didn't matter. As it was, I overheard grumbles in the interval that the first half was too slow, so perhaps Posner simply knows his audience. Certainly, the momentum picked up afterwards, but I think this underestimates how cleverly Frayn educates his audience. We need to learn the play within the play in order to fully understand what is going wrong later, but also about the actors performing to understand why they make such a hash of it. The surreal madness of Lejeune hopping around with tied shoelaces before falling downstairs works because we've been previously led to expect that the worst that can happen is misplacing a plate of sardines. All of which was great fun, and that's not to be dismissed lightly, but the pathos of such a huge ego coming crashing down was rather lost. With a little more attention paid to the subtleties of the play, it could have turned a good production into a great one.