Find out what is being said about the 40th anniversary production of Michael Frayn’s comedy with our review round up…
Broadway World: **** “Joseph Millson shines for his physical comedy as short-fused Gary Lejeune, proving to his co-workers and audience alike that nobody will stand between him and his beloved, Dotty Otley. Felicity Kendal potters back and forth in rhythmical succession as Dotty, with a plate of sardines never far from her hand. Renown for her role as Barbara Good in The Good Life, Kendal is ever-familiar with the stage, making her debut on the boards at only 9 months old in a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
Evening Standard: **** “mostly Noises Off is just blissfully, brilliantly funny. Kendal is well cast and robustly hilarious, if slightly OTT, in her jittery mannerisms and disapproving pouts, as ageing sitcom darling Dotty Otley, who’s staked her savings on the play. Joseph Millson bears the heroic brunt of the physical comedy, lurching up and down stairs and through slamming doors (that old farce standard) with his shoelaces tied together, as her toyboy lover and costar Gary Lejeune.”
The Arts Desk: **** “Sure it’s overly familiar, but, 40 years on, the laughs keep coming.”
Time Out: *** “The physical business is still wildly impressive, of course, and plenty of the jokes still elicit a chuckle. On the whole, it’s solidly cast: Tracy-Ann Oberman blessedly lets rip and chews the scenery as gossipy luvvie Belinda; sole ’11 returnee Jonathan Coy is fun as the desperately fragile Frederick. Felicity Kendall proves her comic chops when in her ‘Nothing On’ rôle of hapless sardine-obsessed housekeeper Mrs Clackett, although she feels miscast as her ‘real’ character Dotty: she has zero chemistry with Joseph Millson’s Garry – they are really not believable as two people having an affair.”
London Unattached: “How far wrong can a production of Noises Off actually go? Frayn’s stage directions are meticulously detailed, and as long as the cast is skilled enough to pull it off, the comedy mostly lies in the script. There isn’t much difference between this 40th-anniversary revival and any other Noises Off production in the last ten years – but it’s good. It’s great, actually. But I’m looking forward to the day some bright young satirist writes something just as funny, or, if the theatrical stars miraculously align, something even funnier.”
All That Dazzles: ***** “If laughter is the best medicine, Noises Off could cure even the most miserable of people.”
The Stage: *** “Michael Frayn’s masterpiece of meta-comedy doesn’t hit the comedy high notes.”
London Theatre.co.uk: **** “Lindsay Posner’s production, which began at Bath last year to celebrate the play’s 40th anniversary, is well paced and has great fun with that weirdly English combination of sexual repression and property obsession (plus a running tax joke that Nadhim Zahawi might enjoy). However, it sometimes loses the spikiness of Frayn’s shrewdly observed characterisation.”
The Telegraph: **** “Felicity Kendal heads a star cast in this hilarious revival of Michael Frayn’s evergreen, pungent farce.”
WhatsOnStage: ***** “The entire thing breezes away the January blues with glorious brilliance. It is an utter treasure.”
Noises Off continues to play at the Phoenix Theatre until the 11th March. To book tickets click here.