A play within a play – Noises Off embarks on its first UK tour

By Micheal Frayn

Directed by Lindsay Posner

Michael Frayn’s multi-award-winning backstage comedy Noises Off visits Wales Millennium Centre on its first UK tour from 11 – 15 of June 2013.

Winner of both Olivier and Evening Standard Awards for Best Comedy, Noises Off serves up a riotous double bill – a play within a play. Hurtling along at breakneck speed it follows the backstage antics of a touring theatre company as they stumble their way through rehearsals to a shambolic first night and a final disastrous performance.

Noises Off – Wales Millennium Centre

Written by Michael Frayn and directed by Lindsay Posner, the cast features Neil Pearson (Bridget Jones’ Diary, Drop the Dead Donkey), Chris Larkin (Master and Commander, Valkyrie, Tea with Mussolini, Dr Who) and Maureen Beattie (Lewis, Taggart, Casualty and Channel 4’s Twelfth Night) along with David Bark-Jones, Simon Bubb, Danielle Flett, Geoffrey Freshwater, Thomasin Rand and Sasha Waddell.

Conrad Lynch, Artistic Director of Wales Millennium Centre said “We are delighted to welcome the Old Vic to the Centre for the first time with their critically acclaimed production of Noises Off, and we are thrilled that along with fantastic Neil Pearson, the wonderful Maureen Beattie is heading up the company. Maureen will be starring in our co-production of Dark Road the first play to be written by Ian Rankin, which will open at the Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh this autumn and will tour the UK in autumn 2014”.

Michael Frayn, winner of the 2013 Olivier Special Lifetime Achievement Award, 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 most recently 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.

Noises Off will be at the Wales Millennium Centre from 11 – 15 June 2013. Tickets range from £18 – £32. For booking and further information visit www.wmc.org.uk or call 02920 63 6464.