Noises Off

The award winning play “Noises Off” was written by Michael Frayn, it had its London premier in 1982 and is arguably one of the funniest comedies ever written. The title “Noises Off” is taken from the theatrical stage direction meaning sounds coming from offstage, the play looks at what happens behind the scenes in a theatre as Frayn thought that it was funnier than what was happening at the front. The story is told in three acts, act one is set during a dress rehearsal of a touring play called “Nothing On”. Unfortunately, the cast are totally not ready to perform the play which is due to open in a few hours’ time. Act two is set during a matinee performance a month later where we find relationships have deteriorated and all sorts of shenanigans are going on backstage. Act three is near the end of the run, relationships have deteriorated even further and personal eccentricities are beginning to affect what is happening on stage, we find some of the actors trying desperately to keep the performance together with the end result that total confusion and pandemonium ensues

Directed by Nick Angus “Adlington Music and Arts Society” rose to the occasion admirably, meeting the many challenges of performing this fast paced very funny play, where teamwork is essential and good comic timing is vital. This was an outstanding slick entertaining production which the audience appeared to enjoy immensely. The talented cast gave us some wonderful quirky individual characters who also had a number of very funny personal idiosyncrasies, while still managing to work superbly together as a team and demonstrating superb comic timing. The action and farcical situations were well choreographed and the pace was spot on, the fast pace and physicality of the play could have affected the diction and projection of words but on the whole on this occasion they were more than acceptable meaning dialogue was heard and the plot could be followed. I must also congratulate the actors who all showed superb comic timing and physical stamina during the mostly mimed and manic second act. The excellent cast included Hazel Bumby as Dotty Otley, Richard Leigh as Lloyd Dallas, Ben Latham as Gerry Lejeune, Rebecca Crookson as Brooke Ashton, Emily Bailey as Poppy Norton- Taylor, Chris Bailey as Frederick Fellowes, Kathryn Gorton as Belinda Blair, Daniel Kenyon as Tim Allgood and Paul Stanley as Selsdon Mowbray.

The brilliant set built by Stephen Pilkington and his team was a significant protagonist in facilitating the hilarious farcical situations, it had also to be multifunctional as it was both a stage set for the play “Nothing On “as well as converting into the backstage area of the theatre for act two, it made a great platform for the cast to perform on, contributing to the success of this production. Well done to all the excellent technical and backstage crew and costumes were just right for the era and the production

Congratulations to Director Nick Angus and everyone involved in this outstanding enjoyable production, thank you for inviting us we had a great evening we hope to see you for your next production.

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