First-night glitch aside, this play-in-a-play is a cut above
Noises Off (Lyric, Hammersmith) Verdict: Runs like clockwork, almost ★★★★✩
ANY production that can survive a show-stop like this one had on its opening night this week must be doing something right.
The play about the play in which everything goes horribly wrong did indeed go horribly wrong itself.
With Meera Syal leading the cast as the actress playing a housekeeper who’s also having a backstage affair, Jeremy Herrin’s show hit the buffers in the second half after a technical glitch.
The trouser-dropping farce found its trousers round its own ankles when the sound failed and the lights went out on stage. An awkward stage manager appeared to apologise.
Was it part of the show? No. Ten minutes of uncertainty followed before it resumed, full steam ahead. Written by Michael Frayn for this theatre in 1982, it sends up the back-biting and off-stage conflict of a theatrical troupe barely managing to keep their touring suburban sex comedy on the road.
The play-withinthe-play is called Nothing On and has more moving parts than a Swiss watch, including Syal’s housekeeper (right) who looks after the home of a tax exile, an estate agent using the house for hanky-panky and a burglar.
Most complicated of all are the backstage shenanigans — flowers go to the wrong woman, an axe becomes an instrument of revenge, and a cactus awaits the backside of the haughty director (Lloyd Owen sporting a Trevor Nunn goatee). It made me smile, but didn’t have me rolling in the aisles. Nobody laughs at ‘sex maniacs’ any more, even ones as harmless as this lot. Still, this is a formidably well-drilled show and, when you cope with adversity as coolly as this, you deserve a big hand.