Cast

Synopsis

This play is about the lives, loves and tribulations of the members of a touring repertory company. Their stories unfold during the rehearsal and performance of a play and the tensions and problems amongst the actors spill over into the characters they portray. A complicated and fast moving farce in the best Whitehall tradition with all the trappings of secret assignations, scantily clad young ladies, misunderstandings galore with people stampeding in and out of doors and ending in a completely chaotic far fetched finale. Don’t try too hard to follow the twists and turns of the plot, just sit back and enjoy the fun.

Directors Notes

We are all familiar with the saying “The show must go on”, It took the barbed wit of Noel Coward to write the song… “Why must the show go on ?” Numerous variants of which, during rehearsals and often up to the very last minute before curtain up, frighteningly assail the minds of both actors and production team.

“Will this show go on ?”.. “Will we ever open ?”….”If that curtain goes up on Monday night it will be a miracle!”: and so on ad infinitum. “NOISES OFF” throws a particular light on this chaos.

Michael Fray’s play is about a touring company presenting a farce entitled “Nothing On”; and the construction is brilliant. From the first act, which is the final rehearsal before the first performance in Weston-Super-Mare.to the third act three months later in Stockton-on-Tees, Fray really puts this ragged company “through the hoop”, and he never lets up.

In Act Two the audience gets a (privileged ?) view of the farce “Nothing On” from back stage. In Act Three in Stockton-on-Tees, but with the set back as it was in Act One, the mayhem continues.

For the actors and everyone backstage, as Neddy Seegoon so often remarked:”It must be hell back there !!!”