15 February 2019
Newsdesk
Michael Frayn’s award winning Noises Off makes a welcome return to the Lyric Hammersmith nearly forty years since it premiered to great acclaim at the theatre in 1982 and instantly became an iconic British comedy. The multi award winning backstage comedy, which runs from 27 June until 27 July, will be directed by Jeremy Herrin and designed by Max Jones in a new production.
With technical brilliance and split-second timing, it takes us behind the scenes with a company of actors in a hilarious and heartfelt tribute to the unpredictability of life in the theatre.
Hailed as one of the funniest plays of all time, Noises Off makes its triumphant return to the Lyric almost 40 years on, in a bold new production by Jeremy Herrin (Wolf Hall/This House) for fans to enjoy and new audiences to discover.
Michael Frayn said, “It’s a great personal pleasure for me, of course, to see my play come home, after all its travels around the world in the last forty years, to the theatre where it took its first hopeful but still uncertain steps.”
Casting and full creative team to be announced.
Michael Frayn has written sixteen plays, including Copenhagen, Afterlife, Benefactors, Donkeys’ Years, and Democracy. He has also translated for the theatre, mostly Chekhov and other plays from the Russian, and adapted Chekhov’s first, untitled play as Wild Honey. He has written a number of screenplays, including Clockwise, starring John Cleese. His eleven novels include The Tin Men, Towards the End of the Morning, Headlong, Spies, and Skios. He has also published various collections of articles, including Collected Columns, Stage Directions, and Travels with a Typewriter; two works of philosophy, Constructions and The Human Touch; and a memoir, My Father’s Fortune. His most recent book, Matchbox Theatre, a collection of thirty short entertainments, was produced on the stage by Hampstead Theatre in May 2015. Copenhagen was revived at the Chichester Festival Theatre in 2018 (director Michael Blakemore).
Jeremy Herrin is Artistic Director of Headlong. His directing credits for Headlong include All My Sons (The Old Vic), Labour of Love (Noël Coward Theatre); People, Places and Things (National Theatre/West End/UK Tour/New York); This House (National Theatre/West End/UK Tour), Common (National Theatre); The House They Grew Up In (Chichester Festival Theatre); Junkyard (Bristol Old Vic/Theatr Clwyd/Rose Theatre Kingston); The Nether (Royal Court/West End); Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme (UK Tour) and The Absence of War (UK Tour). Other directing credits include the world premiere of Hilary Mantel’s Man Booker prize-winning novels Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies in two parts (RSC/West End/Broadway) for which he was nominated for an Olivier and Tony Award for Best Director, That Face (Royal Court/Duke of York’s); Tusk Tusk for which he received an Evening Standard Award nomination, No Quarter, Hero and Kin, The Heretic, The Priory, The Vertical Hour (Royal Court); The Plough and the Stars (National Theatre, co-directed with Howard Davies); The Moderate Soprano (Hampstead Theatre); Another Country (Chichester Festival Theatre /West End); The Tempest, Much Ado About Nothing (Shakespeare’s Globe); Uncle Vanya (Chichester Festival Theatre) and Absent Friends (Harold Pinter Theatre).
Max Jones is currently working on All My Sons (Old Vic). Credits include: Shakespeare In Love (UK tour); Crime and Punishment, A Streetcar Named Desire, Orpheus Descending (Bunkamura, Tokyo); Meek (Headlong); Close Quarters; Love and Information (Sheffield Theatre); The House They Grew Up In (Headlong and Chichester Festival Theatre); The Hypocrite (RSC/Hull Truck); The Shoemakers Holiday, Merry Wives of Windsor (RSC); True West (Citizens Theatre Glasgow & Tricycle, UK theatre award nomination,); Trainspotting, A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, The Caretaker (Citizens Theatre, Glasgow); Pride and Prejudice (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre & UK tour); The York Mystery Plays (York Minster); The Crucible, Brilliant Adventures, Miss Julie (Royal Exchange); A Time To Reap, Spur of the Moment (Royal Court); Così Fan Tutte (Welsh National Opera & UK tour); Little Shop of Horrors, Educating Rita, Glengarry Glen Ross, Bruised, A Doll’s House, Dancing at Lughnasa, Blackthorn, A Small Family Business, Mary Stuart, Measure for Measure, Two Princes, The Grapes of Wrath (Theatre Clwyd); Queen Coal (Sheffield Theatre); The Broken Heart, The Tempest (Shakespeare’s Globe); Play Strindberg (Ustinov, Bath); Much Ado About Nothing (NPAC, Japan); Of Mice and Men (West Yorkshire Playhouse); The Winter’s Tale (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre); Twist of Gold (Polka Theatre); Fatherland (Gate Theatre and Munich); The Hard Man (King’s Edinburgh and UK Tour); Party (Arts Theatre); Mad Forest (JMK Award, BAC); Dumb Show (New Vic Theatre, Stoke); Sweeney Todd (Welsh National Youth Opera); The Lady from The Sea (Theatre Genedlaethol Cymru); Blasted (The Other Room); The Life of Ryan… and Ronnie (Script Cymru) and Salt Meets Wound (Theatre 503).
Max is a graduate of the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff and was a winner of the Linbury Biennial Prize for Stage Design in 2001. He was formerly an Associate Artist at Theatre Clwyd under Terry Hands.
