REVIEW: Shambolic but brilliant Noises Off arrives at Milton Keynes Theatre

And what a pleasure it was to be at the press night for Noises Off, the 40th-anniversary production of Michael Frayn’s multi-award-winning farce.

It’s a play within a play. It follows the on and off-stage antics of a touring theatre company as they stumble their way through the fictional show, ‘Nothing On’.

The touring production stars Liza Goddard as Dotty Otley, Matthew Kelly (always game for a laugh) as the drunken Selsdon Mowbray and Simon Shepherd as Lloyd Dallas.

They are joined on tour by Simon Coates as Frederick Fellowes, Lucy Robinson as Belinda Blair, Daniel Rainford as Tim Allgood, Dan Fredenburgh as Garry Lejeune, Lisa Ambalavanar as Brooke Ashton and Nikhita Lesler as Poppy Norton-Taylor.

And every one of them deserves the utmost praise for what must be one hell of a challenge to keep their concentration as the shambles unfolds, the character interactions get more and more intense and the slapstick nature of the show builds to its crescendo.

We begin with the final rehearsals before opening night in Weston-Super-Mare, where director Lloyd is trying to keep his cool with the cast clearly nowhere near ready to perform. “We have several more minutes before we open,” he says as he glares at the pedantic Frederick who is needlessly questioning holes in the plot.

Dan Fredenburgh (Garry Lejeune) has an uncanny resemblance to a suave David Cameron but as the show unravels he’s increasingly morphed into an outrageous Basil Fawlty-style character, while Lisa Ambalavanar plays the slightly dizzy and distracted Brooke Ashton to perfection and spends most of the show in her underwear after her dress goes AWOL.

The action moves on to a disastrous matinee in Ashton-Under-Lyme, interestingly seen from a backstage perspective which descends into utter chaos as the backstage crew of Tim and Poppy try to keep the show on track, with Lloyd supposed to be watching on from the audience but feeling he has to come to their rescue as the wheels begin to fall off.

There are cast members threatening to quit, Selsdon spending most of the time chasing bottles of booze, and fall-outs which range from taking a swing at each other, a love triangle, plus attempts at sabotage – tying Garry’s shoelaces together being one hilarious example.

We then move onto the final, brilliantly catastrophic performance in Stockton-on-Tees when the show is on its last leg (or last legs!).

The characters are getting increasing hysterical as the production goes into meltdown, with Garry falling elegantly down the stairs (brilliant!), and props and cast members in the wrong place at the wrong time. Lucy Robinson gets her role spot on as the increasingly dramatic Belinda Blair who is just about holding it together as everything around her crumbles.

Throughout the show there so much to look out for. Broken doors, plates of sardines being left in randomly around the set, people stuck in cupboards, many dropped trousers, mysterious Sheiks, and a cactus shoved where the sun don’t shine are but a tiny proportion of the madness.

In fact there was so much going on in the frantic finale that more than once I found myself following the antics of two characters and disappointingly missing what audience members were laughing about that had happened simultaneously on the other side of the stage. You really need eyes in the back of your head at times.

Noises Off is a complete shambles and it’s a pleasure to watch it all fall apart. It’s at Milton Keynes Theatre until Saturday, November 25. Book your tickets here.