An eclectic crowd are gathered at the Nottingham playhouse for the first performance of Noises Off an Olivier award winning comedy about the mishaps and mania of a play being brought to performance.
The play begins as you’d expect any to, but soon enough you see how the audience is very much in on the joke and that joke is very, very funny. The dialogue seems on point flowing and ebbing between flustered actors and weary creative teams attempting to steer the lunacy of it all into some attempt at a coherent show.
I fully see that putting on a play would be hard work, the fact these actors have to act the mistakes, the injuries and the madness on top is testament to their skill and leaves the audience in raucous laughter.
The second half is even better than the first, the pace is breathtaking in places and again the actors make the delicacy of comic timing look natural and hilarious.
There is real passion for the project and you can see it come through the performances, stage design and hats off to Blanche McIntyre for her direction of all this chaos! The audience were in hysterics on many occasion. With a mixture of slapstick, witty dialogue and flashes of partial nudity, what isn’t to like in this wonderful send up of that thing we call theatre, dahhhling!
Noises Off runs until 30th of April, tickets available at www.nottinghamplayhouse.co.uk
Review by Adam Willis
