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28-452: Noises Off is a 1982 farce by the English playwright Michael Frayn . Frayn conceived the idea in 1970 while watching from the wings a performance of The Two of Us , a farce that he had written for Lynn Redgrave . He said, "It was funnier from behind than in front, and I thought that one day I must write a farce from behind." The prototype, a short-lived one-act play called Exits ,

56-702: A UK tour at the Birmingham Rep with Kelly, Liza Goddard , Simon Shepherd , Dan Fredenburgh , Lisa Ambalavanar , Nikhita Lesler, Simon Coates , Lucy Robinson and Daniel Rainford from September 2023. The production will also return to the West End at the Theatre Royal Haymarket with Kendal, Coy and Hanson returning, joined by Mathew Horne , Tamzin Outhwaite , Oscar Batterham and James Fleet from September to December 2023. In 1992,

84-555: A Wednesday matinée performance one month later, at the Theatre Royal in Ashton-under-Lyne . (Designed by Frank Matcham in 1891, the Theatre Royal, Ashton-under-Lyne was demolished in 1963.) In this act, the play is seen from backstage, providing a view that emphasises the deteriorating relationships between the cast. Romantic rivalries, lovers' tiffs and personal quarrels lead to offstage shenanigans, onstage bedlam and

112-500: A production directed again by Blakemore and starring Dorothy Loudon , Victor Garber , Brian Murray , Jim Piddock , Deborah Rush , Douglas Seale , and Amy Wright opened on Broadway at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre , where it ran for 553 performances. It earned Tony Award nominations for Best Play and for Blakemore, Rush, and Seale, and won a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Ensemble. Noises Off has become

140-400: A slight degree of realism and narrative continuity within the context of the irrational or ludicrous situations, often distinguishing it from completely absurdist or fantastical genres. Farces are often episodic or short in duration, often being set in one specific location where all events occur. Farces have historically been performed for the stage and film. The term farce is derived from

168-736: A staple of both professional theatre companies and community theatres on both sides of the Atlantic. On 5 October 2000, the National Theatre in London mounted a revival, directed by Jeremy Sams and starring Patricia Hodge , Peter Egan and Aden Gillett , that ran for two years, transferring to the Piccadilly Theatre in the West End on 14 May 2001 with Lynn Redgrave and Stephen Mangan replacing Hodge and Egan, respectively. Sams' production transferred to Broadway, again at

196-473: Is La Farce de maître Pathelin ( The Farce of Master Pathelin ) from c. 1460. Spoof films such as Spaceballs , a comedy based on the Star Wars movies, are farces. Sir George Grove opined that the "farce" began as a canticle in the common French tongue intermixed with Latin . It became a vehicle for satire and fun, and thus led to the modern Farsa or Farce, a piece in one act, the subject of which

224-703: Is also a source of comic dissonance. The play premièred at the Lyric Theatre , Hammersmith , London in 1982, directed by Michael Blakemore and starring Patricia Routledge , Paul Eddington , and Nicky Henson . It opened to excellent reviews and shortly after transferred to the Savoy Theatre in the West End , where it ran until 1987 with five successive casts. It won the Evening Standard Award for Best Comedy. On 11 December 1983,

252-412: Is extravagant and the action ludicrous. [REDACTED] This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain : Grove, Sir George (1908). Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians . New York, McMillan. Brian Murray (actor) Brian Murray ( né Bell ; 10 September 1937 – 20 August 2018) was a South African actor and theatre director who

280-415: Is not long before the plot has to be abandoned entirely and the more coherent characters are obliged to take a lead in ad-libbing towards some sort of end. Much of the comedy emerges from the subtle variations in each version as character flaws play off each other off-stage to undermine on-stage performance, with a great deal of slapstick . The contrast between players' on-stage and off-stage personalities

308-506: Is seen of the rest of Nothing On except for the ending of its Act 2. Nothing On is the type of farce in which young girls run about in their underwear, old men drop their trousers, and many doors continually bang open and shut. It is set in "a delightful 16th-century posset mill", modernised by the current owners and available to let while they are abroad; the fictional playwright is appropriately named Robin Housemonger. Act One

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336-480: Is set at the technical rehearsal at the (fictional) Grand Theatre in Weston-super-Mare . It is midnight, the night before the first performance and the cast are hopelessly unready. Baffled by entrances and exits, missed cues, missed lines, and bothersome props, including several plates of sardines, they drive Lloyd, their director, into a seething rage and back several times during the run. Act Two shows

364-614: The Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith in a new production directed by Jeremy Herrin from 27 June to 3 August 2019, starring Lois Chimimba, Jonathan Cullen , Debra Gillett , Amy Morgan, Enyi Okoronkwo , Lloyd Owen , Daniel Rigby , Simon Rouse and Meera Syal . The production transferred to the Garrick Theatre in London 's West End with Sarah Hadland , Richard Henders , Lisa McGrillis , Anjli Mohindra and Adrian Richards replacing Gillet, Cullen, Morgan, Chimimba and Okoronkwo from

392-533: The 1970s and 1980s, he performed in a number of radio plays for Yuri Rasovsky 's award-winning National Radio Theater . In 2002, he provided the voice of John Silver in the Disney animated Treasure Planet , a role he reprised in the video game Treasure Planet: Battle at Procyon . He played a role in the 2009 film, My Dog Tulip . Murray died of natural causes on August 20, 2018, at age 80. Source: Playbill Vault Source: Rotten Tomatoes Source: Behind

420-724: The 1973 Broadway revival of The Waltz of the Toreadors . His stage directing credits include Broadway revivals of Hay Fever (1985), Arsenic and Old Lace (1986), Blithe Spirit (1987), and The Show Off (1992). In 1998, he received the Lucille Lortel Award for outstanding body of work. His film credits include Bob Roberts and City Hall . On television he has appeared in Kojak , Another World , Law & Order: Criminal Intent and 30 Rock . In

448-619: The 1982 and 2000 scripts. Some new sequences have been added (e.g., an introduction to Act Three, in which Tim, the Company Stage Manager, and Poppy, the Assistant Stage Manager, make simultaneous apologies – the former in front of the curtain, the latter over the PA – for the delay in the performance). Other sequences have been altered or cut entirely. References that tend to date the play (such as Mrs. Clackett's to

476-516: The Brents having colour television ) have been eliminated or rewritten. A London production ran from 3 December 2011 to 10 March 2012 at The Old Vic , directed by Lindsay Posner and starring Jonathan Coy , Janie Dee , Robert Glenister , Jamie Glover , Celia Imrie , Karl Johnson , Aisling Loftus , Amy Nuttall and Paul Ready . This production transferred to the Novello Theatre in

504-525: The Brooks Atkinson Theatre, on 1 November 2001, with Patti LuPone , Peter Gallagher , Faith Prince , T. R. Knight , and Katie Finneran . The production was nominated for a Tony and Drama Desk Award as Best Revival of a Play, and Finneran was named Best Featured Actress by both groups. Frayn has repeatedly rewritten the play over the years. The last revision was in 2000 at the request of Jeremy Sams. There are numerous differences between

532-531: The French word for "stuffing", in reference to improvisations applied by actors to medieval religious dramas . Later forms of this drama were performed as comical interludes during the 15th and 16th centuries. The oldest surviving farce may be Le Garçon et l'aveugle ( The Boy and the Blind Man ) from after 1266, although the earliest farces that can be dated come from between 1450 and 1550. The best known farce

560-550: The Hammersmith run from 27 September 2019 until 4 January 2020. A 40th anniversary production directed by Lindsay Posner ran at the Phoenix Theatre, London from January to March 2023 (following a short UK tour in autumn 2022) starring Felicity Kendal , Matthew Kelly , Tracy-Ann Oberman , Alexander Hanson , Sasha Frost, Joseph Millson , Jonathan Coy Pepter Lunkuse and Hubert Burton . The production also began

588-791: The West End from 24 March to 30 June 2012, and then toured Britain and Ireland with a different cast. A Broadway revival, produced by Roundabout Theatre Company , started in previews at the American Airlines Theatre on 17 December 2015, and opened on 14 January 2016. The cast featured Andrea Martin (Dotty Otley), Megan Hilty (Brooke Ashton), Campbell Scott (Lloyd Dallas), Jeremy Shamos (Frederick Fellowes), David Furr (Garry Lejeune), Rob McClure (Tim Allgood), Daniel Davis (Selsdon Mowbray), Kate Jennings Grant (Belinda Blair), and Tracee Chimo (Poppy Norton-Taylor). The revival ran its limited run through 13 March 2016, extending by one week due to popular demand. The production

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616-502: The contents page of the script, though they are labelled normally in the body of the script, and the programme for Noises Off will include, provided by the author, a comprehensive programme for the Weston-super-Mare run of Nothing On , including spoof advertisements (for sardines) and acknowledgments to the providers of mysterious props that do not actually appear (e.g. stethoscope, hospital trolley, and straitjacket). Nothing

644-400: The film is "one of the worst ever made". Noises Off has been described as "the funniest farce ever written", and "the classic farce". It has been highly influential, possibly inspiring The Play That Goes Wrong series. The Guardian and Chris Addison have praised its structure. Farce Despite involving absurd situations and characters, the genre generally maintains at least

672-470: The occasional attack with a fire axe. Act Three depicts a performance near the end of the ten-week run, at the (fictional) Municipal Theatre in Stockton-on-Tees . Relationships between the cast have soured considerably, the set is breaking down and props are winding up in the wrong hands, on the floor, and in the way. The actors remain determined at all costs to cover up the mounting chaos, but it

700-484: The play was adapted for the screen by Marty Kaplan . The film, directed by Peter Bogdanovich and starring Carol Burnett , Michael Caine , Christopher Reeve , John Ritter , Nicollette Sheridan , Denholm Elliott , Julie Hagerty , Mark Linn-Baker and Marilu Henner , received mixed reviews, with many critics noting it was too much of a theatrical piece to translate well to the screen. Frank Rich , who had called it "the funniest play written in my lifetime", wrote that

728-746: Was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 2004. Murray was born Brian Bell in Johannesburg, the son of Mary Dickson (née Murray) and Alfred Bell, a professional golfer. Murray made his Broadway debut in the play All in Good Time in 1965. In 1967, he starred as Rosencrantz in the Broadway production of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead , earning the first of three Tony Awards , Best Featured Actor In A Play nominations for his performance. Murray directed

756-1067: Was nominated for 2016 Tony Awards for Best Revival of Play, Best Featured Actress for Martin and Hilty, Best Featured Actor for Furr, and Best Costume Design. An Australian production was mounted at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre , where it ran for three weeks as part of Queensland Theatre Company's 2017 season. After the season with QTC, the show then transferred to the Playhouse Theatre , where it ran from 8 July to 12 August with Melbourne Theatre Company . The cast featured Simon Burke as Lloyd Dallas, Emily Goddard as Poppy Norton-Taylor, Libby Munro as Brooke Ashton, Ray Chong Nee as Garry Lejeune, Hugh Parker as Frederick Fellowes, James Saunders as Timothy Allgood, Louise Siversen as Dotty Otley, Steven Tandy as Selsdon Mowbray and Nicki Wendt as Belinda Blair. In Australia it has been produced many times and in many places from 1982 to 2017. The play returned to

784-439: Was written and performed in 1977. At the request of his associate, Michael Codron , Frayn expanded this into what would become Noises Off . It takes its title from the theatrical stage direction indicating sounds coming from offstage. Each of the three acts of Noises Off contains a performance of the first act of a play within a play , a sex farce called Nothing On . The three acts of Noises Off are each named "Act One" on

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