Tag: Nothing On

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REVIEW: Pick Me Up Theatre in Noises Off, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, running riot farcically until tomorrow ****

Alexandra Mather’s Brooke Ashton, mezzanine level, left, Mark Simmonds’ Tim Allgood and Andrew Isherwood’s Garry Lejeune; Adrian Cook’s Frederick Fellowes, seated, Jessica Hardcastle’s Belinda Blair, Pearl Mollison’s Poppy Norton-Taylor and Helen Spencer’s Dotty Otley in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Noises Off. Picture: Matthew Warry

COMPANY founder, director and designer Robert Readman will sign off his directorial duties for York company Pick Me Up Theatre with Merrily We Roll Along at Theatre@41, Monkgate, next April.

First, however, this week’s production of Michael Frayn’s 1982 farce Noises Off is his last at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, where his distinctive laugh can be heard booming out at each performance, as if encountering Frayn’s fractious dialogue and comedic mayhem for the first time.

Your reviewer finds himself laughing almost as much as Readman, having last experienced Frayn’s play in its first-ever staging in the round, after 43 years, at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, as recently as August 2025.

Craig Kirby’s sozzled actor Selsdon Mowbray in the guise of The Burglar in Nothing On, the play-within-the-play in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Noises Off. Picture: Matthew Warry

Readman gave the design brief to Rich Musk for the rotating stage that will go from staging the dress rehearsal in Weston-super-Mare to showing a mid-tour Ashton-under-Lyne matinee performance of Nothing On, Frayn’s deliberately clunky, maladroit play-within-a-play from backstage, before spinning 180 degrees again for the even more calamitous last night in Stockton-on-Tees. 

Musk delivers the classic stage for a farce: no fewer than seven malfunctioning and misbehaving doors on two floors of a commodious des-res where everything that could go wrong does go wrong both on and off stage.

Instant calmer: Alexandra Mather’s Brooke Ashton takes a breather in a yogic exercise in Noises Off. Picture: Matthew Warry

Rory Mulvihill’s exasperated, vainglorious director, the ever-thespian Lloyd Dallas, is at the helm of Nothing On, expecting his harassed technical team of Mark Simmonds’s dogsbody Tim Allgood and Pearl Mollison’s overworked stage manger Poppy Norton-Taylor to do his running for him.

Already distracted by his upcoming Richard III in Aberystwyth, Dallas strives against the tide to steer his cast of has-beens (Craig Kirby’s drunkard veteran Selsdon Mowbray and Helen Spencer’s tour-backing grandee Dotty Otley; touring plodders (Adrian Cook’s over-thinking, physically fragile Frederick Fellowes and Jessica Hardcastle’s unflappable Belinda Blair), and aspiring talents (Andrew Isherwood’s Garry Lejeune and Alexandra Mather’s company ingenue Brooke Ashton).

Craving a quick exit? Rory Mulvihill’s acerbic director, Lloyd Dallas, looking as frustrated as ever in Pick Me Up Theatre’s Noises Off. Picture: Matthew Warry

Frayn is in mischievous mood, with no room for pathos, as if throwing his own theatrical frustrations into the maelstrom of a warring company replete with the luvvies and the loveless, the boozer and the philanderer, the sex and drudgery and rollercoaster of fallouts in a claustrophobic world of fragile egos, frazzled minds, over-active bodies and a hopeless desire to somehow ensure the hapless show must go on.

Readman’s cast is crammed with supreme York talent, well drilled in ensemble commotion, topped off by Mulvihill’s veteran relish for a divisive director, Spencer’s persistent battles with plates of sardines, the outstanding Isherwood’s physical comedic prowess and boundlessly quizzical air and Mather’s ditziest of dizzy blondes.

Pick Me Up Theatre in Michael Frayn’s Noises Off, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, 7.30pm tonight; 2.30pm & 7.30pm tomorrow. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

No British farce would be complete without dropped trousers. Adrian Cook’s forlorn Frederick Fellowes obliges as Andrew Isherwood’s Garry Lejeune looks on in Noises Off. Picture: Matthew Warry

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Seasoned actor Rory Mulvihill makes directorial hot seat even hotter as egotistical Lloyd Dallas in Noises Off

Rory Mulvihill’s Lloyd Dallas, right, casts his dyspeptic directorial eye over his cast for Nothing On, the play-within-the-play in Michael Frayn’s farce Noises Off: Pearl Mollison’s Poppy Norton-Taylor, left, Craig Kirby’s Selsdon Mowbray, Alexandra Mather’s Brooke Ashton, Andrew Isherwood’s Garry Lejeune, Helen Spencer’s Dotty Otley, Adrian Cook’s Frederick Fellowes and Mark Simmonds’ Tim Allgood

MICHAEL Frayn first had the notion to write his play-within-a-play Noises Off while observing his play The Two Of Us from the wings.

A one-act version, Exits, entered the stage in 1977, to be followed by the three-act full-fat farce in February 1982 at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, London, that has never exited ever since.

Now, this week’s Pick Me Up Theatre production will be company founder Robert Readman’s last as director at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, where he has assembled the peachiest of York casts.

Step forward Helen Spencer, Andrew Isherwood, Alexandra Mather, Rory Mulvihill, Pearl Mollison, Mark Simmonds, Craig Kirby, Jessica Hardcastle and Adrian Cook from tonight (6/10/2026) to Saturday.

“Noises Off takes a wicked look at the follies of theatre folk, whose susceptibility to out-of-control egos, memory loss and passionate affairs turn every performance into a high-risk adventure,” says Robert.

“This play-within-a-play captures a touring theatre troupe’s production of Nothing On in three stages: dress rehearsal, the opening performance and a performance towards the end of a debilitating run.”

Robert continues: “Frayn gives us a window into the inner workings of theatre behind the scenes, progressing from flubbed lines and missed cues in the dress rehearsal to mounting friction between cast members in the final performance.

“Noises Off has a great attraction to the public, but it has even more so to actors, who crave playing Frayn’s roles,” says Rory Mulvihill

“Brimming with slapstick comedy, Noises Off is a delightful backstage farce, complete with slamming doors, falling trousers and –of course – sardines.”

Taking the role of Lloyd Dallas, the sarcastic, condescending, egotistical, exasperated, temperamental director of Nothing On, is veteran York actor and erstwhile Leeds solicitor Rory Mulvihill, who turned 70 in June.

“I actually saw Noises Off in the early 1980s, very soon after it first came out, and I was absolutely blown away by it,” he recalls.

“It spoke to me as someone who performs in shows how particular actors react to things going wrong on stage.

“I particularly remember the dizzy blonde character Brooke Ashton (to be played this week by Alexandra Mather), one of those actors who knows she has certain lines to say in a certain order, and whatever happens, she will get them out in that order.

“Noises Off has a great attraction to the public, but it has even more so to actors, who crave playing Frayn’s roles.”

Relishing his latest role, Rory says: “The great thing about my part is that I’m able to reproduce some of the characteristics of the directors I’ve worked with – and Frayn has done that too of course.

Rory Mulvihill’s director, Lloyd Dallas, seeking urgent lubrication as matters off stage start to overwhelm his already catastrophic production of Nothing On in Michael Frayn’s farce Noises Off. Picture: Matthew Warry

“I don’t normally get involved in ‘back stories’, but Frayn has done a spoof biography of each character, and so you get enough clues from his writing in the play and the biog that Lloyd Dallas is a failed director who clearly thinks he’s better than he is. He has a very high opinion of himself.

“He’s a bully, bullying everyone, particularly the gofer, Tim Allgood, [the overworked, exhausted, and easily flustered stage manager, played by Mark Simmonds from tonight],  but they all take it, all under that veneer of ‘camp theatre speak’!

“One hundred per cent you play Lloyd ‘up’. How else could you play it? I don’t think it’s possible to play him ‘down’. You couldn’t do it deadpan.”

Noises Off may be 44 years old, but its home truths of the acting world resonant as deeply as ever. “The only way you know it’s a period piece is some of its references, such as to the Queen Mother, and the lack of modern technology, but otherwise it’s timeless. However, I have grown a moustache and sideburns – my partner loathes them! – to be more in keeping with the period,” says Rory. “Fashion-wise it’s a period piece but the humour feels contemporary.”

Describing Frayn’s comedic style, Rory says: “It’s 100 per cent grounded in things he has observed – like [Alan] Ayckbourn too. Their genius is to take what they see and turn it into dialogue, like comedians do, reproducing it in a way that’s funny to the audience.

“What differs from Ayckbourn is how there’s no pathos in Noises Off. In Ayckbourn’s plays, it’s always there somewhere. It’s the same with Alan Bennett – I was lucky enough to do Chip In The Sugar, which was both hilarious and emotionally draining at the same time.”

Should you be wondering if one particular director has had an impact on Rory’s portrayal of Lloyd Dallas, he says: “I did over 40 shows with [the late] Bev Jones – and Lloyd is like him in saying ‘love’ and ‘honey’ – but unlike Lloyd, it was lovely to work with him!”

Pick Me Up Theatre in Noises Off, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, October 6 to 10, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.

Pick Me Up Theatre’s poster for this week’s production of Michael Frayn’s theatrical farce Noises Off

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REVIEW: Noises Off, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, until Sept 6 *****

Cast adrift: Nothing On director Lloyd Dallas (Adam Astill), front, makes a sharp point to Selsdon Mowbray (Christopher Godwin); Garry Lejeune (Alex Phelps); Brooke Ashton (Olivia Woolhouse); Freddie Flowers (Andy Cryer); Belinda Blair (Valeria Antwi); Dotty Otley (Susan Twist) and Tim Allgood (Charlie Ryan) in Noises Off. Picture: Tony Bartholomew

IT was supposed to be Mission Impossible. No-one had ever staged Michael Frayn’s play within a play in the round in 43 years.

“Good luck!” said Frayn when told of director Paul Robinson and designer Kevin Jenkins’ meticulous but surely mad plan.

Well, the joke is now on all the naysayers – and you, dear readers, will be the ones having the last laugh if you head to the SJT.

Commotion in motion: Andy Cryer’s Freddie Fellowes and Susan Twist’s Dotty Otley in Noises Off. Picture: Tony Bartholomew

This, after all, is the Mecca for theatrical comedies, the home of myriad Alan Ayckbourn premieres, and who should be looking on from his familiar box but Sir Alan on Tuesday night (12/8/2025).

Frayn’s farce is so good that frankly it is indestructible, but Robinson and Jenkins’ thoroughly rounded production makes it even more joyous. Chaos conducted with precision and audacity.

The nature of theatre in the round is its 360-degree inclusivity. You can see everything, yet without being able to see everything (given the inevitability of actors having their back to you), and part of the pleasure is seeing the enjoyment of all around you.

Eternally exasperated: Adam Astill’s Lloyd Dallas, director of Nothing On, the farce within the farce in Noises Off. Picture: Tony Bartholomew

On top of that is the proximity of the actors: they and you are in the lion’s den; the amphitheatre on a not-so-Colosseum-sized scale. In this instance, you can see, hear and feel the fear of the play within the play going wrong, the heartbeat of Frayn’s classic farce – and the precursor to all that Mischief-making by The Play That Goes Wrong gang.

In a nutshell, in the round, your awareness of the physicality of acting is heightened and, in turn, your appreciation of the comedic skills of the likes of Ayckbourn stalwart Christopher Godwin, Andy Cryer and SJT debutant Alex Phelps, who has charmed  York audiences in the recent past with both his dexterity and the way he makes words dance.

Farce is all about doors – or doors and plates of sardines in the case of Noises Off, as exasperated director Lloyd Dallas (SJT debutant Adam Astill) reminds his hapless company as they prepare for a tour of the fractious and ever increasingly fractured farce Nothing On that will close, it just so happens, in Scarborough.

Christopher Godwin’s old soak, Selsdon Mowbray, in Noises Off. Picture: Tony Bartholomew

The SJT stage has three doorways, all put to maximum use with doors placed in  them, and then Jenkins adds the all-important mezzanine level, with its three doors, plus a trapdoor entry and exit in Act Two.

We join the never-still Astill’s Lloyd initially in the rehearsal room for Nothing On, a clunky, maladroit farce with a bizarre obsession with sardines.

This utterly actorly thespian, soon to give his Richard III in Aberystwyth, must somehow pull together Lloyd’s bank of has-beens (Godwin’s drunkard veteran Selsdon Mowbray and Susan Twist’s tour-backing Dotty Otley); touring plodders (Cryer’s over-thinking, physically fragile Freddie Fellowes and Valerie Antwi’s admirably unflappable Belinda Blair), and wannabes (Alex Phelps’s young buck Garry Lejeune and Olivia Woolhouse’s company ingenue Brooke Ashton).

Annie Kirkman’s Poppy Norton-Taylor trying to keep Nothing On on track in Noises Off at the SJT. Picture: Tony Bartholomew

Then add the ever-harassed technical team, Charlie Ryan’s dogsbody Tim Allgood and Annie Kirkman’s equally overworked Poppy Norton-Taylor.

All the stage world is here: the luvvies and the loveless, the boozer and the philanderer, the sex, the drudgery and the rock’n’rollicking fallouts of a theatre tour, experienced in rehearsal room, then backstage mid-production run and finally on the tour’s catastrophic, calamitous last night.

While your reviewer would never dissuade anyone from partaking of a tipple in either interval, it is rewarding to watch the set changes conducted with a choreographic flourish as doors are reversed and the set turns inside out in the transition from backstage to stage. Ryan’s Tim and Kirkman’s Poppy stay in character to oversee the changes.

Thwarted by a door: Alex Phelps’s restless Garry Lejeune and Olivia Woolhouse’s Brooke Ashton in Noises Off. Picture: Tony Bartholomew

Robinson’s cast is wonderful, especially Twist’s dotty old-stager Dotty, Godwin’s scene-stealing Selsdon and, above all, Phelps’s Garry, with his stair tumbles and earnest air in never quite saying what he feels the need to express.

Simon Slater’s music is irresistibly perky, matching the desperate desire of Nothing On’s cast to prove the show must go on, no matter what befalls the warring players.

You will love the moment when Astill’s Lloyd, arriving for the final performance, is amazed to discover the staging is in the round: a soupcon of meta-theatre in a tour-de-farce masterpiece.

Noises Off, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, until September 6, 7.30pm plus 1.30pm Thursday  and 2.30pm Saturday matinees. Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com

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