As Michael Frayn’s most well-known and probably most-produced play,

is his

, a brilliant and hilarious sendup of the traditional British sex farce and of the play-within-a-play. Often called the

of farces,

rekindled farce as a form and pays tribute to such predecessors as Georges Feydeau, Ben Travers, Arthur Pinero and Eugène Labiche. As John Simon observed, “In

, we have the pleasure of seeing a once thriving but lately moribund genre come alive again to shake us with laughter and even improbably, shake us up into a little peripheral thought.”

With its sharp wit, masterful wordplay, and sardonic puncturing of social norms, Noises Off is the perfect vehicle for Frayn, incorporating his fascination with language, with the

5292 words

Citation: Blansfield, Karen. "Noises Off: a play in three acts". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 27 June 2019 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=20696, accessed 25 April 2024.]

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