Michael Frayn's Noises Off is returning to the West End with Lindsay Posner's 40th Anniversary production starring Felicity Kendall.

Felicity Kendall in Noises Off. Photo: Nobby Clark

Theatre Royal Bath Productions have announced that Michael Frayn’s multi-award-winning farce, Noises Off, will return to the West End with a twelve-week season at the Theatre Royal Haymarket from September 27 2023.

Noises Off stars Felicity Kendal (The Good Life, Relatively Speaking and Hay Fever) as Dotty, Jonathan Coy as Frederick Fellows and Alexander Hanson as Lloyd Dallas with further casting to be announced.

The acclaimed 40th Anniversary production directed by Lindsay Posner (God of Carnage, Hay Fever, Stones in his Pockets) opened to critical acclaim at Theatre Royal Bath in Autumn 2022 before transferring for its initial West End run to the Phoenix Theatre in January this year.

One of the greatest British comedies ever written, Michael Frayn’s celebrated play serves up a riotous double bill – a play within a play. Hurtling along at breakneck speed, Noises Off follows the on and off-stage antics of a touring theatre company as they stumble their way through the fictional farce, Nothing On. From the shambolic final rehearsals before opening night in Weston-super-Mare, to a disastrous matinee in Ashton-Under-Lyme seen entirely, and hilariously silently, from backstage, before we share their final, brilliantly catastrophic performance in Stockton-on-Tees.

After watching from the wings a production of his 1970 farce The Two of Us with Richard Briers and Lynn Redgrave and noting that the goings on behind the scenes were funnier than out front, Michael Frayn wrote Noises Off. The original production opened in London in 1982 before becoming a worldwide hit. A feature film was made of Noises Off in 1992.

Noises Off is written by Michael Frayn. The creative team for this 40th Anniversary production includes Lindsay Posner (Director), Simon Higlett (Designer), Paul Pyant (Lighting Designer), Greg Clarke (Sound Designer), Will Stuart (Composer), Ruth Cooper-Brown (Movement and Fight Director), George Jibson (Associate Director), Ginny Schiller (Casting Director).

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