Noises Off - casting announced
Preview by Lizzie Guilfoyle
CASTING has been announced for the Old Vic’s revival of Michael Frayn’s multi award-winning 1982 comedy, Noises Off, which runs from December 13, 2011 (previews from December 3) to February 25, 2012.
They are Jonathan Coy, Janie Dee, Robert Glenister (Hustle, Spooks), Jamie Glover, Celia Imrie, Karl Johnson, Aisling Loftus, Amy Nuttall (currently in ITV1’s Downton Abbey) and Paul Ready.
Janie Dee’s theatre credits include Donkeys’ Years; Between the Lines; Betrayal; Much Ado About Nothing; Comic Potential, for which she won Olivier, Evening Standard and Critics’ Circle Awards for Best Actress; Shadowlands, in which she starred alongside Charles Dance; and Woman in Mind; as well as the musicals Cats; Carousel, for which she won her first Olivier; My One and Only; Oklahoma! The Sound of Music; South Pacific and Mack and Mabel, opposite David Soul.
Celia Imrie’s most recent theatre credits include Victoria Wood’s Acorn Antiques The Musical, for which she won an Olivier Award, Nicholas de Jongh’s Plague Over England (as Sybil Thorndike) and Hay Fever (Rose Theatre, Kingston). She is, however, better known for her numerous screen roles – in films such as Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, Calendar Girls and Wimbledon.
Previously Posted: This Christmas, the Old Vic is reviving Michael Frayn’s multi award-winning 1982 comedy, Noises Off – from December 13, 2011 (previews from December 3) to February 25, 2012.
A play within a play, Noises Off follows an amateur touring production of the sex comedy Nothing On. From the disastrous dress rehearsal to the final performance, it portrays the explosive personal relationships that have led to off stage trickery and on-stage chaos.
Noises Off will be directed by Lindsay Posner, whose credits include House of Games, The Hypochondriac, Tom and Viv and Mamet’s Romance (Almeida Theatre), Fiddler on the Roof (Sheffield Theatres and Savoy Theatre), Three Sisters on Hope Street (Hampstead Theatre), Carousel (Savoy Theatre), A View from the Bridge (Duke of York’s Theatre) and Butley (Duchess Theatre).
As Associate Director of the Royal Court (1987 – 1992), Posner directed the Olivier Award-winning Death and the Maiden.
Casting has yet to be announced.
Noises Off‘s last London outing transferred to the West End and Broadway following a successful run at the National Theatre in the year 2000.
The play, originally produced in February 1982 at the Lyric Hammersmith, subsequently transferred to the Savoy Theatre. Directed by Michael Blakemore, it starred Paul Eddington, Patricia Routledge and Nicky Henson and went on to win Evening Standard and Olivier Awards. With a total of five successive casts, it continued at the Savoy until 1987.
Michael Frayn’s other work for the stage includes The Two of Us, Alphabetical Order, Donkeys’ Years, Clouds, Balmoral, Make or Break, Benefactors, Look Look, Here, Copenhagen, Democracy and Afterlife. He has also published ten novels, including the Booker Prize-nominated Spies and Headlong.
Richard III continues at the Old Vic until September 11, 2011. It will be followed – from September 17 to November 26, 2011 – by M Synge’s Irish comedy, The Playboy of the Western World.