 |  | Noises Off, reviewed by site user John Fenner
Michael Frayn is a talented man indeed. Not only is he a distinguished novelist, having recently won the Whitbread Award for Best Novel with his book, Spies, but also an outstanding playwright, whose last play, Copenhagen, won the Evening Standard and Critics' Circle Best Play Awards for 1998.
Perhaps his best-known work for the stage is Noises Off, which is not just the perfect farce, but also uses the clever device of a play within a play.
This production is brought to Stratford by the Ambassador Theatre Group, in conjunction with the Royal National Theatre, where it was first seen in October 2000. It is directed by Jeremy Sams with superb attention to detail and a true appreciation of the genre.
 There was such an evenly strong cast it was difficult to single out anyone in particular  | | John Fenner |
The piece opened on the set of the play Nothing On, which was in its final rehearsal before starting a tour.
Relationships between members of the cast were not all they could be, and there were some potentially unreliable characters among them.
Needless to say, the rehearsal did not go well. However, it is often said in the business that a bad 'dress' frequently makes for a good opening, and here we assumed the tour began satisfactorily.
When we joined the play in act two, the set was reversed and we observed the action backstage. The tour was well-advanced at this point and nearly all the relationships were close to breaking point.
This was just beginning to affect the performance and to upset the director was romantically involved with both the play's glamour girl and the stage manager.
The backstage device is ingenious and, because the production is only on the verge of disintegrating, this probably was the most telling act.
By act three we were back in front of the set for the last performance of the tour and everything fell apart - literally. It is unlikely that anyone would ever work with any of the others again - if any of them could find work at all!
|  | Cheryl Campbell, playing Dotty Otley, playing Mrs Clackett! |
There was such an evenly strong cast it was difficult to single out anyone in particular.
However, Philip Franks was outstanding as the director, Lloyd Dallas, whose beautifully controlled frustration during the rehearsal finally burst forth when he returned from his subsequent project to find the production swiftly spiralling downward!
We also had Cheryl Campbell as I have never seen her before as Dotty Otley, playing the highly unstable housekeeper, Mrs Clackett. She had some wonderfully comic moments all her own.
But one cannot mention these without the others in cast.
Paul Bradley, frequently lost his trousers and his consciousness, James Albrecht, frequently lost his rag and his girl, Tilly Gaunt, lost her dress, Tessa Churchard, her husband, Nicky Callanan, her flowers, Sylvester McCoy, a bottle of Scotch and Andrew Pointon, his sanity (almost)!
This is a real must-see and if you can't catch it in Stratford (it's on until 15 March) try and catch the national tour.
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