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
Original language	English
Subject	Play within a play
Genre	Comedy

Noises Off is a 1982farce by the English playwrightMichael Frayn.

Frayn conceived the idea in 1970 while watching from the wings a performance ofThe Two of Us, afarce that he had written forLynn 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 calledExits, was written and performed in 1977. At the request of his associate,Michael Codron, Frayn expanded this into what would becomeNoises Off. It takes its title from the theatrical stage direction indicating sounds coming from offstage.

• Lloyd Dallas: The director of a play-within-the-play,Nothing On. Temperamental, exacting and sarcastic. Involved with both Brooke and Poppy.
• Dotty Otley: A middle-aged television star who is not only the top-billed star but also one of the play's principal investors. Dating the much younger Garry.
• Garry Lejeune: The play's leading man, a solid actor who is completely incapable of finishing a sentence unless it is dialogue. Constantly stutters and ends sentences with "you know..." Dating Dotty and prone to jealousy.
• Brooke Ashton: A young, inexperienced actress from London. She pays no attention to others, either in performance or backstage, and persists in her role as scripted regardless of any interruption or mayhem. She is always losing hercontact lenses, without which she is blind. Part of the Lloyd–Poppy–Brooke love triangle.
• Frederick (Freddie) Fellowes: Has a serious fear of violence and blood, both of which give him nosebleeds. Well-meaning, but lacks confidence and is rather dim-witted.
• Belinda Blair: Cheerful and sensible, a reliable actress and the company's de facto peacemaker. Something of a gossip, and a bit two-faced. Has a rather protective attitude towards Freddie.
• Selsdon Mowbray: An elderly, half-deaf "pro" with a long, storied career and a drinking problem. If he is not in sight while rehearsing, the stage crew must find him before he finds anything alcoholic.
• Poppy Norton-Taylor: Assistant Stage Manager and understudy to the female roles. Emotional, skittish and over-sensitive. Part of the Lloyd-Poppy-Brooke love triangle and, by act two, pregnant with Lloyd's baby.
• Tim Allgood: The over-worked and easily flustered Stage Manager, who must understudy, fix the set and run Lloyd's errands on top of his usual duties.

• Mrs. Clackett (Dotty): The Cockney housekeeper for the Brents' home. A hospitable, though slow-witted and slow-moving, chatterbox.
• Roger Tramplemain (Garry): An estate agent looking to let Flavia's and Philip's house.
• Vicki (Brooke): A girl Roger is attempting to seduce (or perhaps a girl trying to seduce Roger). Works for thetax authorities.
• Philip Brent (Freddie): Lives out of the country with his wife Flavia toavoid 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): An old man in his seventies, breaking into the Brents' house.
• Sheikh (Freddie): Interested in renting the house.

Each of the three acts ofNoises Off contains a performance of the first act of aplay within a play, asex farce calledNothing On. The three acts ofNoises 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 forNoises Off will include, provided by the author, a comprehensive programme for the Weston-super-Mare run ofNothing On, including spoof advertisements (for sardines) and acknowledgments to the providers of mysterious props that do not actually appear (e.g. stethoscope, hospital trolley, and straitjacket). Nothing is seen of the rest ofNothing On except for the ending of its Act 2.

Nothing On is the type offarce 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-centuryposset 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 thetechnical rehearsal at the (fictional) Grand Theatre inWeston-super-Mare. It is midnight, the night before the first performance and the cast are hopelessly unready. Baffled by entrances and exits, missed cues, missed lines, and bothersome props, including several plates of sardines, they drive Lloyd, their director, into a seething rage and back several times during the run.

Act Two shows a Wednesday matinée performance one month later,^[4] at the Theatre Royal inAshton-under-Lyne. (Designed by Frank Matcham in 1891, the Theatre Royal, Ashton-under-Lyne was demolished in 1963.) In this act, the play is seen from backstage, providing a view that emphasises the deteriorating relationships between the cast. Romantic rivalries, lovers' tiffs and personal quarrels lead to offstage shenanigans, onstage bedlam and the occasional attack with a fire axe.

Act Three depicts a performance near the end of the ten-week run, at the (fictional) Municipal Theatre inStockton-on-Tees. Relationships between the cast have soured considerably, the set is breaking down and props are winding up in the wrong hands, on the floor, and in the way. The actors remain determined at all costs to cover up the mounting chaos, but it is not long before the plot has to be abandoned entirely and the more coherent characters are obliged to take a lead inad-libbing 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 ofslapstick. The contrast between players' on-stage and off-stage personalities is also a source of comic dissonance.

The play premièred at theLyric Theatre,Hammersmith, London in 1982, directed byMichael Blakemore and starringPatricia Routledge,Paul Eddington, andNicky Henson. It opened to excellent reviews and shortly after transferred to theSavoy Theatre in theWest End, where it ran until 1987 with five successive casts. It won theEvening Standard Award for Best Comedy.^[5]

On 11 December 1983, a production directed again by Blakemore and starringDorothy Loudon,Victor Garber,Brian Murray,Jim Piddock,Deborah Rush,Douglas Seale, andAmy Wright opened onBroadway at theBrooks Atkinson Theatre, where it ran for 553 performances. It earnedTony Award nominations for Best Play and for Blakemore, Rush, and Seale, and won aDrama Desk Award for Outstanding Ensemble.^{[citation needed]}

Noises Off has become a staple of both professional theatre companies andcommunity theatres on both sides of the Atlantic. On 5 October 2000, theNational Theatre in London mounted a revival, directed byJeremy Sams and starringPatricia Hodge,Peter Egan andAden Gillett, that ran for two years, transferring to thePiccadilly Theatre in the West End on 14 May 2001 withLynn Redgrave andStephen Mangan replacing Hodge and Egan, respectively. Sams' production transferred to Broadway, again at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre, on 1 November 2001, withPatti LuPone,Peter Gallagher,Faith Prince,T. R. Knight, andKatie 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.^{[citation needed]}

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 havingcolour television) have been eliminated or rewritten.^{[citation needed]}

A London production ran from 3 December 2011 to 10 March 2012 atThe Old Vic, directed byLindsay Posner and starringJonathan Coy,Janie Dee,Robert Glenister,Jamie Glover,Celia Imrie,Karl Johnson,Aisling Loftus,Amy Nuttall andPaul Ready. This production transferred to theNovello Theatre in the West End from 24 March to 30 June 2012, and then toured Britain and Ireland with a different cast.^{[citation needed]}

A Broadway revival, produced byRoundabout Theatre Company, started in previews at theAmerican Airlines Theatre on 17 December 2015, and opened on 14 January 2016. The cast featuredAndrea Martin (Dotty Otley),Megan Hilty (Brooke Ashton),Campbell Scott (Lloyd Dallas),Jeremy Shamos (Frederick Fellowes),David Furr (Garry Lejeune),Rob McClure (Tim Allgood),Daniel Davis (Selsdon Mowbray),Kate Jennings Grant (Belinda Blair), andTracee Chimo (Poppy Norton-Taylor).^[6][7] The revival ran its limited run through 13 March 2016, extending by one week due to popular demand.^[8] The production was nominated for 2016Tony Awards for Best Revival of Play, Best Featured Actress for Martin and Hilty, Best Featured Actor for Furr, and Best Costume Design.^[9]

An Australian production was mounted at theQueensland Performing Arts Centre, where it ran for three weeks as part ofQueensland Theatre Company's 2017 season.^[10] After the season with QTC, the show then transferred to thePlayhouse Theatre, where it ran from 8 July to 12 August withMelbourne Theatre Company.^[10] The cast featuredSimon Burke as Lloyd Dallas, Emily Goddard as Poppy Norton-Taylor,Libby Munro as Brooke Ashton, Ray Chong Nee as Garry Lejeune, Hugh Parker as Frederick Fellowes, James Saunders as Timothy Allgood,Louise Siversen as Dotty Otley,Steven Tandy as Selsdon Mowbray andNicki Wendt as Belinda Blair.^[11] In Australia it has been produced many times and in many places from 1982 to 2017.^[12]

The play returned to theLyric Theatre, Hammersmith in a new production directed byJeremy Herrin from 27 June to 3 August 2019, starring Lois Chimimba,Jonathan Cullen,Debra Gillett, Amy Morgan,Enyi Okoronkwo,Lloyd Owen,Daniel Rigby,Simon Rouse andMeera Syal. The production transferred to theGarrick Theatre inLondon'sWest End withSarah Hadland,Richard Henders,Lisa McGrillis,Anjli Mohindra and Adrian Richards replacing Gillet, Cullen, Morgan, Chimimba and Okoronkwo from the Hammersmith run from 27 September 2019 until 4 January 2020.

A 40th anniversary production directed byLindsay Posner ran at thePhoenix Theatre, London from January to March 2023 (following a short UK tour in autumn 2022) starringFelicity Kendal,Matthew Kelly,Tracy-Ann Oberman,Alexander Hanson, Sasha Frost,Joseph Millson,Jonathan Coy Pepter Lunkuse andHubert Burton.^[13] The production also began a UK tour at theBirmingham Rep with Kelly,Liza Goddard,Simon Shepherd,Dan Fredenburgh,Lisa Ambalavanar, Nikhita Lesler,Simon Coates,Lucy Robinson and Daniel Rainford from September 2023. The production also returned to the West End at theTheatre Royal Haymarket with Kendal, Coy and Hanson returning, joined byMathew Horne,Tamzin Outhwaite, Oscar Batterham andJames Fleet from September to December 2023.

Source:^[16]

• Lloyd:Benjamin Whitrow.
• Dotty:Phyllida Law.
• Freddie:John Quayle.
• Belinda:Gabrielle Drake.
• Selsdon:Robert Flemyng.
• Tim:Robert Bathurst

Source:^[22]

• Lloyd:Paul Hecht.
• Dotty:Carole Shelley.
• Freddie:Patrick Horgan.
• Belinda:Concetta Tomei.
• Selsdon:George Hall.
• Tim:Christian Clemenson.

Source:^[16]

• Lloyd:Philip Franks,Nicholas Jones.
• Dotty:Selina Cadell,Cheryl Campbell,Lynn Redgrave.
• Brooke:Pandora Clifford.
• Freddie:Paul Bradley,Derek Griffiths.
• Belinda:Julia Deakin.
• Selsdon:Sylvester McCoy,Malcolm Tierney.

Source:^[23]

• Lloyd:Leigh Lawson.
• Dotty:Jane Curtin.
• Garry:Paul Fitzgerald.
• Brooke:Kali Rocha.
• Belinda:Kaitlin Hopkins.

In 1992, the play was adapted for the screen byMarty Kaplan. The film, directed byPeter Bogdanovich and starringCarol Burnett,Michael Caine,Christopher Reeve,John Ritter,Nicollette Sheridan,Denholm Elliott,Julie Hagerty,Mark Linn-Baker andMarilu Henner, received mixed reviews, with many critics noting it was too much of a theatrical piece to translate well to the screen.^[24][25]Frank Rich, who had called it "the funniest play written in my lifetime",^[26] wrote that the film is "one of the worst ever made".^[27]

Noises Off has been described as "the funniest farce ever written",^[28] and "the classic farce".^[29] It has been highly influential, possibly inspiringThe Play That Goes Wrong series.^[30]

The Guardian andChris Addison have praised its structure.^[31][32]

Wikimedia Commons has media related toNoises Off.

• ​Noises Off​ at theInternet Broadway Database
• ​Noises Off​ (Brooks Atkinson Theatre 1983–85) at theInternet Broadway Database
• ​Noises Off​ (Brooks Atkinson Theatre, 2001 revival) at theInternet Broadway Database
• ​Noises Off​ (American Airlines Theatre 2015–16) at theInternet Broadway Database
• Review of Broadway revival byMatthew Murray, 1 November 2001

• 1982 plays
• Broadway plays
• Comedy plays
• Laurence Olivier Award–winning plays
• Metafictional plays
• British plays adapted into films
• Plays by Michael Frayn
• West End plays
• Plays about actors

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