Noises Off - Rilegato

'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

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 As finely worked as a Swiss watch and as funny as the human condition permits..the zigzag brilliance of the text as the clunky lines of the farce-within-a-farce rub against the sharp dialogue of reality. Michael Billington, Guardian Genius farce..achingly, foot-stompingly, seal-honkingly hysterical. Frayn has written more serious plays but none more profound. Only Noises Off captures the baffling resilience of human existence. David Jays, Sunday Times A spot on parody..achieves an almost mathematical elegance as Frayn calculates all the many and varied ways in which it can all go wrong. Noises Off is cunningly structured. ..Noises Off offers an infallible escape in to happiness. Charles Spencer, Daily Telegraph Michael Frayn's play feels fresh, witty and polished. It is a triptych that illuminates the fragility of drama and the relationships of those who create it. It is entertaining and painful - a summation of all that farce can do. Henry Hitchings, Evening Standard There has never been a more brilliantly conceived machine for helpless laughter than Michael Frayn's 1982 classic Noises Off.. ..deliriously funny.. Paul Taylor, Independent Many claims have been made for Michael Frayn's award-winning Noises Off, including that it's the funniest play ever written. The skilfull structure of the piece means the performance builds and builds.. Julie Carpenter, Daily Express It's comic bliss. Georgina Brown, Mail on Sunday A brilliant farce set behind the scenes of a dreadful one..a richly detailed tapestry of catastrophe. Andrzej Lukowski, Time Out London Frank Rich loved it, 'Noises Off', said the great N'Yawk critic, 'is, was and always will be the funniest play written in my lifetime'. Frayn's orchestration of his materials is dazzlingly skillful. Lloyd Evans, Spectator Imagine a comedy so definitively comic that there seemed no point in ever writing another. I cannot think of another play which has quite so obviously been written by a comic genius. ..a jaw-droppingly clever piece of work. John Nathan, Jewish Chronicle 'Another of Frayn's regular motifs surfaces here, the mayhem that results when precise order breaks down.' --Jeremy Kingston, The Times, 21.05.10

Michael Frayn was born in London in 1933 and read Russian, French and Moral Sciences (Philosophy) at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He began his career as a journalist on the Manchester Guardian and the Observer. His award-winning plays include 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. Two of his more recent plays, Copenhagen and Democracy, also won numerous awards (including, for Copenhagen, the Tony in New York and the Prix Molière in Paris). In 2006 Donkeys' Years was revived in the West End thirty years after its premiere and was followed in 2007 by The Crimson Hotel, at the Donmar, and by Afterlife, at the National Theatre, in 2008. Frayn has translated Chekhov's last four plays, dramatised a selection of his one-act plays and short stories under the title The Sneeze, and adapted his first, untitled play, as Wild Honey. Frayn's novels include Towards the End of the Morning (in the USA, Against Entropy), The Trick of It, A Landing on the Sun, Headlong and Spies. His most recent books were a work of philosophy, The Human Touch, and Stage Directions, a collection of his writing on the theatre.