Noises Off by Michael Frayn

Noises Off by Michael Frayn

Noises Off is not one play but two - simultaneously a traditional sex farce, Nothing On, and the backstage farce that develops during Nothing On's final rehearsal and tour. The two farces begin to interlock, as the characters make their exits from Nothing On only to find themselves making entrances into the even worse nightmare going on backstage, and exit from that only to make their entrances back into Nothing On. In the end, at the disastrous final performance in Stockton-on-Tees, the two farces can be kept separate no longer, and coalesce into one single collective nervous breakdown. Noises Off won both the Evening Standard and the Olivier Awards for Best Comedy when it was first produced, and ran in the West End for nearly five years. Michael Frayn's most recent play, Copenhagen, won both the Evening Standard Best Play Award in London and the Tony Best Play Award in New York.

'Frayn's construct is based on the principle that if farce involves watching the wheels come off a well-oiled machine, then nothing could be funnier than seeing the wheels fall off a farce itself.. Pure comedy gold.' Alfred Hickling, Guardian, 26.2.09 'Michael Frayn's deleriously funny comedy about actors in crisis is probably being produced somewhere in the world every week of the year.' Jeremy Kingston, The Times, 21.05.10 'Another of Frayn's regular motifs surfaces here, the mayhem that results when precise order breaks down.' Jeremy Kingston, The Times, 21.05.10 'Is Michael Frayn's farce about a farce the funniest play ever commited to paper? It would certainly be in my top 3.' Robert Dawson Scott, The Times, 22.06.10 'You have to hand it to Michael Frayn. He is nothing if not electric. It is scarcely beleivable that he is the author of Copenhagen (a deeply philisophical play about the politics of science) and this most famous of modern English farces, Noises off.' Mark Brown, Sunday Herald, 13.06.10

Michael Frayn's work for the stage includes Alphabetical Order, Make and Break and Noises Off, all of which received Best Comedy of the Year awards, while Benefactors was named Best Play of the Year. His other works include Democracy (National Theatre and West End prior to Broadway) and Copenhagen (winner of numerous awards including the Evening Standard and Critics' Circle Best Play Awards 1998). He has translated Chekhov's four last plays and is also a novelist and recipient of the Whitbread Prize for Best Novel for Spies.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780413758507
ISBN 10	0413758508
Title	Noises Off
Author	Michael Frayn
Series	Modern Plays
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Year published	2000-10-05
Number of pages	176
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable