NOISES OFF

The Piccadilly Theatre, 17 October 2003

Review by Emma Shane

The first problem with reviewing a farce like Noises Off is where on earth does one start? Personally I found this one of the funniest show’s I’ve ever seen. I In fact, I don’t think there can have been such a funny portrayal of back-stage life since the TV series The Muppet Show (about 25 years ago). It is therefore, particularly thrilling to find one of that programme’s legendary performers in tonight’s show. Noises Off is also a good deal better than many a show with a back-stage story, for the simple reason that the various goings on are actually more or less believable, many of the little incidents would probably not be so very out of place in real life. However, two words of warning. The first is that this is a very fast moving farce, therefore it requires a lot of concentration from the audience, if you blink you’ll lose the plot, so this is a show best watched sober. (and I don’t think I’d have been able to write this review without having purchased a copy of Michael Frayn’s text during the interval). The second word of warning is that Louise Gold delivers a performance that is very characteristic of her, and if you don’t approve of that sort of thing then you probably won’t enjoy the show with her in it. However, if, as I do, you happen to like Louise Gold’s rather individual performance style, then this production with her in it is a thoroughly enjoyable one. And therein lies the second problem. How does one write a fair balanced review of the show? Well I’ve decided not to. I’m just going to give my own humble opinion of the show. I happen to be rather a fan of Ms Gold, and I like the way Jeremy Sams has directed her in this show (at least I assume he’s directed her - though she did join the cast later than the rest), so I’m not even going to try and be all that critical, I’m just going to describe it the way I see it.

The plot revolves around the efforts and back-stage shenanigans of a touring company on the road in a farce called ‘Nothing On’. Thus a significant proportion of the dialog and actions are from the show-within-the-show. The set has a back and a front. For Act One we see its front (depicting the interior of an English country house). Noises Off opens with the start of Nothing On’s “Dress” or is it “Technical” rehersal. Those of us who like Louise Gold, are in for a treat at this point, Dotty Otley (played by Ms Gold) is the first character on stage. She is wearing an overall (over a dress of some sort), a mop-like had on her head only partially covers her chestnut curls, and she has socks and slippers on her feet (I’m not sure whether she’s wearing tights or not), this rig exposes her calves, rather nicely seeing as she’s got good legs. A telephone is ringing, and she walks on, carrying a plate of sardines, to answer it. Whereupon (in the character of Mrs Clackett, a housekeeper) she delivers some wisecracking lines about the owners of the house all being in Spain, and if people want to let the house they should ring the letting agents. This speech gives Louise Gold an opportunity to exercise her talent for delivering comedy lines brilliantly. At the end of it Dotty goes to exit, but as she moves off, she drops out of character, trying to remember what (out of: sardines, newspaper, and, telephone receiver) she is supposed to leave on the stage, and what she is to take with her. Soon an off-stage voice begins to call directions. This is Lloyd, the director of the play-within-the-play, portrayed here by Philip Franks. This too soon proves to be an excellent performance, with Philip standing at the side of the stalls (the left-side audience way round), holding a hand microphone. After a brief, and quite funny discourse, about the stage directions, the action resumes with Dotty’s exit, only she still gets the directions wrong. Two more actors, Garry, played by James Albrecht, and Brooke, played by Tilly Gaunt, in the characters of Roger and Vicki respectively enter. Roger claims to be an estate agent showing a prospective client around, although it’s clear that Vicki is his girlfriend. However Lloyd has to halt the proceedings to correct Dotty’s stage directions, again, and we find Garry and Dotty addressing each other as “love”, well they are actors, Lloyd uses a lot of Luvvie-talk too. Brooke seems to spend most of the discourse out of it, lost in her own thoughts. The action resumes, with Dotty under Lloyd’s instruction getting her directions right, until about three pages later she comes back for the sardines, and forgets to take them away. Garry complains that the four plates of sardines to be taken on and off in Act One is driving them mad, and Lloyd summons Poppy, the Assistant Stage Manager, to do something about this, change them grilled turbot. However, the actors not only have to contend with sardines, but: boxes, bags, doors, and on top of that they’ve still got words to remember. James Albrecht spoke it with such sincerity that I am sure that there must be many actors, especially in farces, who’ve harboured similar feelings.. Meanwhile, Louise Gold’s facial expressions, reacting to everyone else’s lines, is proving to be well worth paying attention to.

The play within the play resumes, with Vicki and Roger going to the bedroom, and the entrance of two more actors, Frederick, played by Paul Bradley, and Belinda, played by Tessa Churchard, portraying the owners of the house, Philip and Flavia, tax-exiles who’ve sneaked back for their wedding anniversary, respectively. The action has to halt again, because one door won’t open and another won’t shut. So they send for Poppy again, and Lloyd, doing his “and God said” act gets Poppy to fetch Tim, The Stage Manager, (who put set up), to come and fix the doors. Meanwhile Frederick is enjoys sitting on the furniture.

But now there is another problem, which prompts a few comments about how in the rehearsal room it was much easier, because their wasn’t a set, they could all see each other (this is another of those nice little touches that is almost certainly true, some actors have been known to pass comments on the shock they get when they first rehearse on the actual set, for example suddenly finding you have a big drop in front of you, where previously you only had a line on the floor). The problem is that one of the actors, whom we haven’t yet met is missing, Selsdon. Having looked everywhere Lloyd tells Poppy to ring the police and one wonders if this ever happens in real life? Well I should think it probably has happened that at one time or another).

However, at that moment Selsdon, played by Sylvester McCoy, enters (I can’t quite remember if he entered via the auditorium or not), he is carrying a cane. I’m not quite sure why a burglar would carry a cane, but its logical an aging actor might. It seems Selsdon was asleep in the back of the stalls. Meanwhile, Lloyd, Dotty and Garry each say it was their fault, with Dotty mentioning that she wanted to give Selsdon one last chance, after all they had been in weekly rep together in Peebles. Around this point, I seem to recall the pair got to hug, exactly as one would two actors who appeared together years previously and have now found themselves cast in the same show might.

On with the plot, it transpires that Dotty has money invested in the show. I think it was at this point (although I can’t remember for certain), that Garry and Dotty ended up sitting on the stairs, with Garry two steps up massaging Dotty’s shoulders. Meanwhile Lloyd suggests Tim should take a break by going upstairs and working on the VAT. Here Philip Franks proves that his flair for delivering comic lines is practically as good as Louise Gold’s (and she’s first rate). Again, while this is going on, Louise is speaking volumes about her character, and everything else, just with the expressions on her face. They are about to carry on, when Belinda elects to whisper to Lloyd that Dotty and Garry look sweet. Lloyd is surprised, he didn’t know that Dotty and Garry are an item and exclaims “But she’s old enough to be....” His voice tales off, and I find myself observing that Louise Gold seems to be making a habit of playing women who get involved with much younger men, what with Follies and Mamma Mia and now this.

Having got the doors fixed the rehearsal is able to proceed with a scene where Mrs Clackett tells Philip she’s put his letters “in the pigeonhouse in the study”, he thought she forwarded all his mail, but it seems she left the stuff from Inland Revenue. Here Louise Gold demonstrates her expert ability to deliver ridiculous lines with a perfectly straight face. And then Frederick stops the action, by demanding to know why Philip takes a box into the study. In the middle of the explanation (Selsdon needs them there for his scene), hearing his name, Selsdon enters too soon, breaking a glass pane in the back of the set. So Poppy is summoned to “put the glass back”, and finally they can go on. This time they get through quite a lot of action: Roger collecting sardines, and shutting Vicki (in her underwear) in the airing cupboard; Philip looking at his tax return and making Mrs Clackett promise not to tell anyone that he and Flavia are here; and Mrs Clackett saying a lovely line “If it wasn’t fixed to my shoulders I’d forget what day it was” The line doesn’t make much sense, but when spoken by such a fine performer it just sounds great. Meanwhile Flavia has found Vicki’s dress, thinks its one of hers, which Philip bought her, but she’d never wear anything so tarty, so she puts it in the attic, and Philip decides to get some glue (to stick the tax return envelop back down, this is a bit that didn’t come over too clearly and I wondered why he was messing around with glue). Then Brooke announces she’s lost her contact lens. Unfortunately so much was happening all at once, with doors opening and closing, and the lines in the text are a bit obscure, that I didn’t realise at first what was going on. Dotty says quite loudly (to Garry) “Mind where you put your feet”, then with instructions from: Fredrick, Garry and Belinda, the entire cast move about the stage in slow-motion, lifting up their feet, standing on one leg, and then the other, and finally crawling around the stage, trying to find Brooke’s missing contact lens. This was a very funny piece of visual comedy, all our actors tonight can clearly use their bodies to act. Then in the middle of the confusion, a few people collided, resulting in Frederick pulling out a bloodied handkerchief (This only made sense to me on reading the play-text, it seems he can’t stand violence, and it causes his nose to bleed. I thought he only had a thing about blood, and couldn’t quite understand why he kept producing the handkerchief. Which perhaps goes to show how tricky this play is to follow). Anyway Brooke has found the lens, it had slipped but was still in her eye. Philip Franks gets an opportunity to show how good he is at delivering lines telling them to clear the stage “The walking wounded carry the stretcher cases”

The rehearsal continues with: Roger finding a hot water bottle in the bed, Vicki wondering why their bflight bag has disappeared and getting scared that the house is haunted, Philip gets glued to his tax return, and Flavia decides to clear out that attic, which gives Tessa Churchard a nice little turn with a feather duster. Just like in the farce their characters are rehearsing, the actors have an awful lot of props to deal with, and this is very tightly scripted, so there is little room for the director or actors to add anything individual to the production, even nimble-fingered Louise Gold already has her work cut out, handling plates of sardines, newspapers, and telephones.

Flavia tells Philip to “Just get that bottle marked poison from the downstairs loo”, and it’s Paul Bradley’s turn to demonstrate that he too is good at delivering comic one liners, with “I’ve heard of people getting stuck with a problem, but this is ridiculous” At this point there is a bit of a pause before The Burglar enters, Selsdon’s moment has come at last. Lloyd suggests that Selsdon should come on a little earlier, Selsdon suggests the same, Lloyd makes the suggestion again and Selsdon says he thinks they’re thinking along the same lines; while we’re left wondering whether this is really how directors work? On with the plot, Selsdon moves the television set, calling it as a microwave oven; and Roger asks Mrs Clackett if the house has “any previous history of paranormal phenomena”. Once again it’s Louise Gold’s turn to demonstrate her flair for delivering one-lines with “Oh yes dear, it’s all nice and paranormal”. Which she does with complete conviction, though it put me in mind of the TV series The Ghost Of Faffner Hall.

They carry on discussing the possibility of the paranormal, with Mrs Clackett not revealing that Philip and Flavia are there. Again Louise used her gift for facial expression to convey a good deal. Then if that wasn’t enough, Louise Gold gets another fine line to deliver “I’m going to be opening sardines all night, in and out of here, like a cuckoo on a clock” (a line which promptly made me think of the song Tico Tico). The plot continues with Philip, stuck to both his tax return and a plate of sardines, having holes in his trousers, and is worried that the stuff might eat through further and so in true farce tradition (well certainly the tradition of the Feydeau farces that The Orange Tree Theatre always put on so wonderfully) decides to remove his trousers. Roger and Philip encounter each other, at first Roger thinks Philip is a ghost, before deciding the man must be a sex maniac, and Vicki is missing. Philip runs outside, Roger phones the Police, Vicki turns up saying “There’s a man lurking in the undergrowth”, they find what they think are their missing belongings, Roger calls off the Police. Meanwhile, Vicki, who works for The Inland Revenue, has recognised Philip as being wanted by them, and she and Roger go and try and find something for her to wear. Philip and Roger encounter the burglar (in the upstairs bathroom removing the bath taps), Philip thinks he’s another a tax inspector, Roger thinks he’s another sex maniac. Meanwhile, Vicki has attired herself in black bed sheets, and Philip in white bed sheets. Mrs Clackett brings on yet another plate of sardines, and declares this time she’s eating them. It’s time for everything to get untangled. Mrs Clackett snatching away the black sheets, delivers another great line “Oh and there she stands in her smalls for all the world to see.”, Roger recognises Vicki, the burglar comes out and recognises Vicki, as his long lost daughter. Philip meanwhile has made a discreet exit, only for Fredrick to reappear as an Arab Sheik.

Lloyd stops the action, to ask why Philip has his trousers on (round his ankles). Frederick protests it’s difficult without a dresser, but Tim has to be on standby for understudy duties. Philip then wants to know why is playing the Arab Sheik. So Lloyd has to explain. Dotty by this time is standing on the stairs with her back to the wall, looking for all the world as though she’s trying not to laugh (and I’m not sure a whether it’s Dotty or Louise herself who’s trying not to laugh. However, I think it fits in with the character of Dotty very well). Explanation over, Philip is ready to resume, but now Brooke wants it explained to her! They are just two lines away from the end of the act, so if she would just say her line they could all finish and have a cup of tea. Brooke runs off crying, Lloyd goes after her. Belinda reveals that Brooke and Lloyd are having a little thing. It seems no one else knew this. Paul Bradley and Louise Gold have a nice moment where she finishes a line he started, about Tim initially putting the set up back-to-front. Lloyd returns with Brooke, and Poppy runs off saying she’s going to be sick (we don’t realise the relevance of this until later), Poppy is also having a thing with Lloyd, something even Belinda didn’t know. Dotty gets to moan about them only having had too weeks rehearsal; As Garry James Albrecht had mentioned it much early, only I didn’t notice. One can hardly help but hear when Louise Gold says it so clearly loud as a bell. This is one of those realistic points that got worked in. I’m sure many of the actors have had contend with too little rehearsal, at numerous points in their careers. Louise Gold certainly has. Finally they get to the end of the rehearsal, and with that Act One comes to an end.

One might find it a little confusing when characters are continually dropping in and out of a show-within-a-show’s characters. But it is here that Louise Gold in particular, comes up trumps. She changes her accent noticeably depending on whether she is being Dotty Otley or Dotty-acting-Mrs-Clackett. Louise happens to be one of those performers who brilliant at doing different accents. And even better, she can switch between one accent and another at lightning speed. For Dotty herself she uses a fairly normal English actressy sort of a voice, a fairly neutral kind of accent. Its not exactly her own, but close. When Dotty speaks in character as Mrs Clackett, Louise comes out with an excellent Cockney accent. Although some of the other actors do switch accents to a certain extent none of them do it quite as clearly as Louise. The other thing that is becoming very apparent is Louise Gold’s use of facial expressions. Almost all the time she was on stage she was using her face to react to whatever was going on. While I realise that some of the audience may have found this too distracting, personally I really enjoyed her doing that, and hope she continues to employ this technique, because I felt it made the whole thing that much more convincing. If one were in such a situation, one probably would be reacting all the time, acknowledging what was going on. It gave that much more depth to her portrayal. She isn’t just speaking her lines, she’s living her character.

There is an interval before Act Two, which opens with the set having been turned round, so we see the ‘back’ of the set. It is several weeks into the tour of ‘Nothing On’, just before a matinee performance. But, as Tim and Poppy soon reveal, there is problem. Garry and Dotty have had a bust up, because Dotty didn’t come home last night. Now Dotty has locked herself in her in dressing-room and won’t come out. She is also refusing to speak to anyone. Poppy tries to be optimistic that Dotty will pull herself together now it’s five minuets to curtain up. Lloyd enters. He’s supposed to be directing Richard The Third, and, Philip Franks delivers a very funny speech about the problems he’s having with that: Actors complaining about each other, and the leading man putting his back out. All of it sounds most convincing, like the sort of thing that probably does happen in real life. He’s only dropped in to try and cure Brooke of nervous exhaustion, hence why he has brought a bottle of whisky (make sure Selsdon doesn’t get hold of it). He dispatches Tim to buy flowers, and goes out front. Poppy returns, and mistakenly thinks Selsdon has taken to hiding whisky round the set, she goes to hide it in the ladies lavatory. Then Belinda and Frederick enter (singularly), but still no sign of either Dotty or Garry. Frederick invariantly lets slip that he is the cause of the bust up. He went for a drink with Dotty, she was very nice and sympathetic to all his problems, they went back to his digs for a cup of tea, and she told him all her problems, and sat there until three in the morning. It’s perfectly innocent, but Garry obviously doesn’t think so. It certainly helped the believability by having Dotty portrayed by an actress who one can really imagine would be ‘nice’ to her fellow actors. (One of Louise Gold’s various gifts as an actress, is her ability to play even superbitch characters with a degree of niceness - not that Dotty is one of her superbitches by any means).

Tim returns with the flowers, which Poppy thinks are for her, Belinda finds the whisky and thinks Selsdon, who is missing again, hid it in the ladies lavertory. Meanwhile, Tim and Poppy are both trying to do the three minute, two minute and one minute calls. Only not knowing which of them has done what they get them muddled, and Lloyd comes in to ask what is going on, explaining there are a lot of pensioners in the audience, who use the calls to know when they must go, and come back from, the toilet. He does a good job of demonstrating them rushing around wildly. Brooke now enters, having found a bottle of whisky in her dressing-room, most of them Selsdon, who has gone missing again, put it there, Tim is dressed as a burglar just in case. In fact Selsdon turns up of his own accord, he’s been enthralled by the row between Dotty and Garry. At this point I found the action getting a little tedious, was it after all the dashing around of Act One? Well no, it’s just that I found Louise Gold’s addition of using her facial expressions to reflect the proceedings very engaging and I missed them (though I suppose some members of the audience might have been welcomed the absence of that distraction). But to me, the only downside to Louise’s habit of grabbing scenes, is that things seem a little boring without her. Then Garry turns up, and after a few moments more, at long last Dotty. She sweeps on, wearing a dressing-gown over her costume, and dark glasses. She stands posed, with an imperious air, rather like Lilli Vanessi in the first scene of the Regents Park production of Kiss Me Kate six years ago. Louise Gold is rather good at this imperious lark. But she still won’t talk. The company plead with Dotty, and at last she asks hesitantly “How’s the house?” then she changes her slippers from Dotty’s to Mrs Clacketts. They can go on with the show. The rest of Act Two is to my mind the high-spot of the entire evening, as the company demonstrate a little of what life might be like back-stage during a production of a farce. If it was chaos on the ‘front’ set with actors rushing in and out with props, ‘back stage’ its even more chaos. I’m sure most if not all of the actors in tonight’s production have experienced this sort of thing, and Noises’s Off’s director Jeremy Sams almost certainly has, only last summer he was directing The Water Babies at Chichester where the cast had to contend with numerous exits and entrances, and costume changes (leading lady Louise Gold alone had eight costume changes in that show).

On with the plot: Lloyd sends Tim to buy more flowers, this time for him, as Tim gave the last lot to Poppy. Frederick tries to be friendly to Garry, who still wants to hit him. Now we come to a highly farcical moment, which I thought was funnier than the sex references in ‘Nothing on’ Frederick has to get his bloody handkerchief out (I didn’t quite understand why, but from the text it seems his nose is bleeding again), which causes him to go faint. Dotty helps him onto a chair. Paul Bradley is a slightly big, and slightly overweight man, but Louise Gold is a tall strong woman, so she’s quite a match for him. Garry, who is making a quick exit and entrance, pauses to step on Frederick’s foot (accidentally on purpose). Dotty gets onto her knees to examine his foot, but manages to look rather suggestive with her head between his legs as she does so. Garry out on stage, keeps glancing through the doors, to see what is going on, and somehow always manages to look when the pair are at their most suggestive. In the course of this (and a good bit of this action seems to have been a director’s addition), Frederick gets off the chair, with his injured foot up, and Dotty still trying to administer to it. Then Frederick falls down on the floor, and Dotty kneels between his legs to administer to him. Garry opening a door to see what is going on then knocks her over, Frederick by now has recovered sufficiently to administer to Dotty. This was really extremely funny, because if it were not for the fact that the two actors in question were fully clothed, it would have looked like that might be well er doing it. It has to be said that Louise Gold and Paul Bradley prove to be brilliant at miming at this point. Both of them really should be in farces more often.

The action continues with various actors hastily conveying to each other, by mime, what is happening backstage, all the while we hear parts of the on-stage dialogue in the background. Sometimes, it was difficult to hear, although it has to be said that Mrs Clackett can always be heard clearly throughout, simply because of the shear decibels that Louise Gold’s pipes generate. Meanwhile Selsdon has got hold of the whisky and drunk some of it, Dotty gets a bit upset and is comforted by Frederick, which of course makes Garry jealous, and he tells Dotty he won’t tolerate he her meetings with Frederick. The whisky bottle, plates of sardines, bunches of flowers (Tim has now brought a third bunch) and an axe now get passed around by various actors, in between them rushing on and off stage, some of whom haven’t a clue why they are holding these things, others known exactly what they want to do with them, and their colleagues try to prevent them from doing it. If we thought the actors had a lot to handle in Act 1, it was nothing compared to this. But luckily they are all consummate professionals, and do it very well. Meanwhile Selsdon has gone off again, and so has Brooke. They struggle through with Poppy reading some of Vicki’s lines, until she reappears, in her underwear and coat. Selsdon is dragged on holding up his trousers, and bundled on stage. But he’s in no fit state to go on, and during his exit into the ‘upstairs bathroom’, decides to relive himself. Dotty, standing below this gallery has her hand in the way, and so has to deal with that (this seems to be another addition for the production). It’s effective at communicating more clearly that Selsdon isn’t in a state to go on. Then to add to the chaos, Brooke loses one of her contact lenses. So everyone started picking up their feet and crawling around on the floor (its rather nice to see Louise Gold once again in a production where she spends a proportion of the action crawling around on the floor - back in 1996/97 she seemed to be doing it all the time). Next we had another bit which I didn’t really notice quite what Garry was doing (but the text says he tipped a plate of sardines over Dotty’s head). And now we come to another of the high spots of the evening. Garry is standing by the ‘Bedroom door’ ready to make an entrance. Suddenly, Dotty climbs up the stairs and putting her right leg over the banisters, reaches round with her hands to do something to his shoes (the text says she climbs on a chair). It was really quite comical to see this 5ft9” tall actress perched in such a funny position. Getting off the banisters she comes down the stairs. Garry makes his entrance and falls over. Louise Gold’s face is an absolute picture, as with a big wide grin Dotty takes care to let the others know she’s clearly responsible for that. Then, in mime she tells them exactly what she has done, tied Garry’s laces together. Louise didn’t need to say a word, her ability to mime both what Dotty has done, and her glee at having done it, are obvious. She looks like she’s thoroughly enjoying portraying an actress playing a practical joke to unstarch a colleague. It’s definitely one of her best moments in the entire show.

There are a few more crashing sound as Garry attempts to carry on with the show. Frederick comes over faint. Brooke goes on blindly (still in her overcoat) and falls over with her legs in the air (we can see her through the window). The rest of the cast continue searching for Brooke’s lenses. It is suggested in mime that they might be in Dotty’s clothes; Selsdon and Lloyd help her look, to Garry’s obvious annoyance (he’s really got the green-eyed monster). Just to complicate matters Tim brings a cactus on, which Garry uses to attack Lloyd. Dotty attends to Lloyd’s injuries, which only provokes Garry further, meanwhile Garry has also upset things, by tying the black and white bed sheets together, making it very difficult for Frederick and Brooke to get on with the show. At this point everything degenerates into such chaos I won’t attempt to describe it, sufficient to say it winds up with a hastily improvised Arab Sheik (involving Tim’s raincoat, the robes are now missing). Finally with everyone else out on stage for the finale, Poppy manages to get Lloyd to herself, to try and whisper her problem to him, but he can’t hear her, and the act ends with her yelling to him that she is going to have a “baby” (just when Selsdon was supposed to say “Sardines”).

All the confusion in Act 2 of people thinking justifiably or not that one character is having a relationship with another, reminded me very much of the situations that used to arise on The Muppet Show, whenever Miss Piggy caught Kermit (not to mention the odd male Guest Star) giving somewhat amorous attention to other females, such as one of the female Guest Stars, or, young Annie Sue Pig. Only this time, Louise Gold is playing one of the characters who may or may not be involved with more than one lover. The actors throw themselves whole heartedly into portraying this aspect of their world, and needless to say, Louise Gold is clearly one of the stars of the piece, especially when Dotty ties Garry’s laces together. But then she has been acting-out parts such as this, where these lunatics carry on going from back-stage to on-stage, for about twenty-five years.

There is a pause between Act 2 and Act 3, and the curtains are drawn. Presently Tim steps out in front, to say that due to circumstances beyond their control the curtain will be late rising. While he is speaking we hear Poppy over the tannoy, an amount of screaming in the background, and cries of “You don’t own him” (it reminded me of some of those incidents on The Muppet Show, when Miss Piggy got wild because someone else, like Annie Sue, was kissing Kermit). Some of the screaming is clearly Dotty, because Louise Gold has very distinctive powerful pipes, and her screams sound like a mixture of Kate in Kiss Me Kate and The Duchess Of Plaza-Toro in The Gondoliers. So know we know what young Annie Sue Pig has grown up into. At last the curtain can go up. The set has been turned to its ‘front’. Mrs Clackett enters, limping, and instead of saying “I’ve only got one pair of feet” adlibs “and I’ve only got one leg”, just the sort of thing an actress would adlib in such a situation. And now, Louise Gold acts out a lesson in just what does happen when ASM’s aren’t concentrating, she has react her way round a telephone that rings rather belatedly. In this production they dragged that wonderful moment out (it’s very brief in the text). The moment is amusing enough as it is, but its particularly funny if you know that it’s a sort of situation Ms. Gold has a certain familiarity with.

But it isn’t just the telephone that is causing problems, Dotty also drops the sardines on the floor, and realising it’s slippery hastily covers them with the newspaper. In the general confusion she takes the handset off stage with her; so that for the next few ‘scenes’ there is a telephone cable stretching across part of the set, which the actors have to adlib their way round. I found this joke wore a bit thin. Rather more interesting was the problem with the sardines. Garry has been standing on the newspaper. So Dotty, who has reappeared with the telephone receiver (which she places on the lamp-shade (because the instrument is now missing), says she had better give the floor a wash. She returns a little later with a large red fire-bucket, and a mop. But she’s got to go off-stage, so someone else will have to mop the floor. Garry tries to tie up the sardine-and-newspaper mess, and puts it on the table. Frederick and Flavia continue the telephone saga, but the sardines are still causing problems, Frederick put the parcel on the sofa, and, bangs into the bucket. Belinda throws the bucket into the wings (how on earth did they mange to get that right?). Dotty comes on and sits down on the sofa. (I don’t think I’ve seen anything like that since the waffle-iron business in Red Hot & Blue). On finding the sardine newspaper parcel she’s not exactly amused; Louise Gold really is something acting with her face. Lines are getting very jumbled here: Mrs Clackett keeps saying Sardinia instead of Spain, Belinda adlibs some of Philip’s lines as Flavia’s, and Dotty tries to stuff the newspaper down Belinda’s dress as the exit. The next time Dotty comes on, she’s retrieving the newspaper from her own dress (so presumably Belinda did the same to her back-stage). They attempt to carry on with the paranormal lines, at which point the set starts creaking, and Frederick falling down the stairs causes half the banisters to fall out. Tim has to sub for him for a few moments. The sets is moaning, and Louise Gold delivered the line a line about that (“Oh Lord above, it says in the text”), with such a groan, that I wondered “Is this actress, acting-out her worst nightmare or something?

Further confusion reigns, with bags and plates of sardines on set when they’re not supposed to be, and a lovely line about a “Hot water box” instead of a bottle, spoken by Flavia, brandishing the first aid box. Brooke looses her lenses again, and a door handle comes off ‘The airing cupboard door’, so Garry has to go and get Brooke and bring her on stage via the ‘bedroom door’ (we can all see them through the glass at the back. Tim has to sub for Selsdon, only he reappears, but in the middle of that Lloyd comes on, also dressed as a burglar. The plot goes completely to pieces, as Poppy trying to sub for the Sheik, is referred to as a bride, and with a lot of adlibbing they get to the end of the show, very much like The Muppets always managed somehow to get to the end of their shows.

For Act 3, that brilliant mistress-of accents Louise Gold employs another delightful little trick to illustrate the resulting chaos. Until this point, she had maintained two distinct accents, but now she portrays Dotty’s increasing confusing by deliberately mudding the waters, aware that we are more or less familiar with which lines come from ‘Nothing on’, she only goes partially into accent, suggesting that Dotty have some difficulty in maintaining the cockney accent. This is even more skilful than before; because when an actor really can do something well, its difficult for them to pretend to do it badly. But Louise pulls thus stunt off remarkably well.

All in all Noises Off is, in my opinion, a very funny show. It is also superbly acted by an excellent cast. Most of them have some experience of the kinds of situations their characters encounter, which makes the whole thing feel that much more real. It’s a great treat to see Sylvester McCoy live on stage, he brings to the role of Selsdon all the experience he has gained as a comic actor from numerous television jobs, from being an incredibly stupid super-hero on Jigsaw to the victim of Wilf Lunn’s inventions in Eureka and Vision On. In fact his experiences in the former may also have helped him with the miming. James Albrecht’s best moment is surely his ability to cope with having his shoe-laces tied together. Andrew Pointon played his part convincingly, while Nicky Callanan was not only convincing but also gained the audiences sympathies for her predicaments. Tilly Gaunt is at her best looking a bit dumb, I’m sure someone could find a part for her in a similar role. Tessa Churchard coped well with the various props, and gave a sterling supporting performance. Paul Bradley does a great job of acting suggestively-but-not, with Louise Gold, and proves to be a pretty good deliverer of comic lines. There is also an extremely fine performance from Philip Franks who is one of the best comic line speakers in the show, Louise Gold being another. And what of Louise herself, well she’s a fine comic actress, who brings to her part a substantial amount of experience: She’s been a hapless ASM, she’s been a touring actress, she’s coped with too little rehearsal time, she’s even been in rep; and on top of her experience as an actress, she also brings to the part her considerable experience in comedy gained from her experience as a puppeteer. She is an excellent comic actress, and one who really should do more farce, because she’s jolly good at it.

If you are the kind of person who likes watching things like The Muppet Show, then you’ll probably enjoy this sort of putting-on-a-show farce, especially when the cast includes Louise Gold, under the masterful direction of Jeremy Sams. This last is a point well worth mentioning. It was already clear from The Water Babies, last summer, that Jeremy Sams is the kind of director (like Paul Kerryson and Nigel Plaskitt) who really seems to know how to get the best out of Louise Gold; allowing her to use her individual acting style to the full, subtly grabbing hold of scenes, commanding the audiences attention. In a sense you might say she upstages her colleagues, or even steals scenes from them, and to be sure there were moments when I for one (and I think other members of the audience may have been too) was laughing more at Louise’s reaction to her colleague’s lines or actions, than to whatever it was they were actually doing. But on the other hand in a fast-moving comedy like this one, anything that helps the laughs to come in the right places is surely no bad thing. And she is well worth the attention, for her facial expressions convey so much more than mere words can. This is especially helpful during Act 2, when the cast have to communicate a lot by miming. After all it’s not as if Louise was doing it maliciously or anything like that. It’s a very natural part of her character, and helps to make the whole thing more believable. Complete and utter stillness might be all very well in Chekov plays (though actually I think they could be livened up), but it wouldn’t exactly be convincing for a drama about a bunch of English actors attempting to cope with chaos. One of the things I very much like about Louise Gold’s unusual acting style, is that when she is out there on the stage (or for that matter on film or TV) who she is playing opposite doesn’t generally seem to make any difference to how she plays her part. She acts opposite all of them with same delightful irreverent manner (much like an irrepressible Muppet). Yes, Ms Gold can act with restrained decorum, if her job requires it (she proved that when she was in the RSC), but when she has such a flair for likeable irreverence, it would be a waste not to make use of it. So it is a thrill to see her in a show where this quality of hers is appreciated and her natural tendencies are allowed to flourish.

But just because I’ve focused this review on Ms Gold, does not mean to say she necessarily dominates the action. It’s very much an ensemble show, everyone plays their part, and gets their opportunities to shine. All nine actors deliver first rate performances and this is one West End show that I think might actually be worth top price (if only for a certain lady’s facial expressions). Oh yes, and if you’re wondering what happens ASM’s like Poppy in real life, once they grow up, well this production certainly gives us a chance, to see what a fine comedy actress, one hapless ASM (Sherringham Little Theatre, probably in the summer of 1974), has grown into.

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