A study guide for Michael Frayn's "Noises Off"

By Gale and Cengage

A study guide for Michael Frayn's "Noises Off", excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Drama for Students series. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Drama for Students for all of your research needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: May 2, 2016
• ISBN: 9781535828543

Book preview

11

Noises Off

Michael Frayn

1982

Introduction

Noises Off is a popular 1982 play by the distinguished British playwright and novelist Michael Frayn. Typical of Frayn's work, it is a farce that combines elements of slapstick, absurdity, clever puns, and other tricks of language. Noises Off is set during the rehearsals and in the backstage areas during performances of a fictitious play: Nothing On. Frayn writes in an interview with Denise Worrell in Time that he had the idea while watching a performance of one of his own plays from the wings: It was funnier from behind than in front, and I thought ‘One day I must write a farce from behind.’ The phrase noises off is a stage direction that means sounds coming from off the set are to heard on stage and by the audience. The innovation in Noises Off is that in each of the three acts, the audience sees the first act of Nothing On performed over again. The first act of Noises Off is a rehearsal seen more or less as the audience for Nothing On would see it. This play-within-a-play is a very inferior and hackneyed farce, so bad that it is funny. The second act takes place backstage during a performance of Nothing On, and the third act is a later performance of Nothing On, seen again from the front of its stage. Here, the endearing eccentricities of the cast members are revealed to be destructive failings that demolish the world of the play.

Author Biography

Frayn was born in an upper-middle-class British family in London on September 8, 1933. He attended Kensington Grammar School and earned a degree in philosophy at Emmanuel College of the University of Cambridge in 1967. He also did two years of compulsory military service, during which he learned Russian. He started work as a reporter for prominent English newspapers such as the Guardian and the Observer. He quickly became a columnist and was noted for the satirical style of his writing. After that, it was an easy transition to writing comic plays and novels.