Stage and TV favourite Matthew Kelly will star in Michael Frayn’s riotous comedy Noises Off at Blackpool Grand Theatre from Tuesday 3 to Saturday 7 October alongside fellow stage and screen stars Liza Goddard and Simon Shepherd.

Frayn’s ever-popular play-within-a-play hurtles along at breakneck speed as it follows the on and off-stage antics of a hapless touring theatre company as they stumble their way through the fictional farce Nothing On.

Matthew Kelly (who won the Olivier Award for Of Mice and Men and whose many West End credits include Waiting for Godot, Comedians and Troilus and Cressida) plays bumbling burglar Selsdon Mowbray in the classic romp. Diane Parks met up with the seasoned actor to find out all about this exciting new tour as he gets ready to bring Noises Off to The Grand direct from a triumphant West End season.

This smash hit show is certainly a drama. Just how close does the story come to the real experience of life on the road?

“Touring plays is such a fantastic experience because you become a family, I love the company of actors,” said Matthew. “You become very close to people, particularly in a play like this one, as you have to trust people you don’t know very quickly.

“I think Noises Off is what we would like to be true of a tour. When you see the backstage stuff it’s kind of enlarged for comic effect but that’s how Michael Frayn came to write it in the first place. He had written a one-act play about 42 years ago and he was backstage watching the actors from the wings and he thought what was going on backstage was funnier than what was going on in his play.

“This is a great cast and that’s important,” he added. “It’s always very important to me that everybody gets on and has a good time onstage as well as offstage because I think an audience can always spot that and feel the warmth of that.”

Noises Off is currently celebrating its 40th anniversary. Why do you believe the play has lasted so well?

“Noises Off is a genius piece of writing and Michael Frayn, who is now 89, has been with us from the start of this production and he is very supportive,” says Matthew. “He understands chaos and yet it is clever because it’s so interwoven. In the first act, they are rehearsing the play and just being actors. In the second act you see the same thing only from backstage when they are actually on the road. And in the third act, it’s the same play but from the front and on the road when the thing has completely gone to pieces!

“A play within a play allows you to narrate certain sections and it allows for greater comedy in exploiting the foibles of actors – which is never not funny. What’s also so thrilling about good writing in theatre is that the audience feels like they’re part of it, or at least a fly on the wall watching it and that’s what I love about theatre.”

Is it true you have a long association with Noises Off as you were considered for a part in its early days on stage?

“Forty years ago I was up for the part of Garry Lejeune which is the driver of the play,” he says. “But I couldn’t have done it at the time. My character Selsdon is great. He’s an old drunk so I’ve based my entire career on the part! I’m digging deep for it and I’ve done a lot of research!” laughs Matthew.

“I love the part for lots of reasons. One is that he’s the oldest in the company and people are quite respectful of the elderly but also because he’s somebody who is really sweet and really annoying at the same time and has absolutely no idea what’s going on. It’s my kind of part. But it does have its challenges – running up and down stairs and climbing in and out of windows when I’ve got two new hips for example. It’s physically quite hard.”

Why should audiences come to see Noises Off at The Grand?

“It’s the kind of theatre that we need. It’s joyful, it’s exciting, it’s intelligent, it’s a thrilling piece of theatre and it will have people absolutely rocking in their seats. I’ve watched with the audience because my first entrance is not until half-way through the first act, so I sit at the back of the stalls watching them laughing. And because it has got so many different layers to it, people are laughing at so many different things at the same time and it’s very rare in a farce that you can see that. Even I still laugh at it and what it does.”

Noises Off is widely acclaimed as one of the greatest British comedies ever written and was first published by English playwright Michael Frayn in 1982. From the shambolic final rehearsals before opening night in Weston-super-Mare, to a disastrous show matinee in Ashton-under-Lyne; Noises Off is ‘packed with visual and verbal gags’ and is all seen entirely, and hilariously silently, from backstage before we share their final, brilliantly catastrophic performance in Stockton-on-Tees…

Loved by the critics, with reviews ranging from ‘pure comic bliss and ‘dazzlingly brilliant’ to ‘blissfully and brilliantly funny’ and ‘one of the most joyous farces ever written’; this must-see production is brimming with slapstick comedy complete with dropped trousers, slamming doors and flying sardines!

Joining Matthew in this iconic comedy is the much-loved actress Liza Goddard – whose extensive stage comedy credits include Life of Riley, Communicating Doors, Season’s Greetings and Relatively Speaking, as Dotty Otley, and top TV and theatre actor Simon Shepherd from ITV’s Peak Practice and the highly acclaimed West End productions of Posh, The Duck House, Rapture, Art and Hay Fever as Lloyd Dallas.

Don’t miss out on all the fun this October! Book your seats now.

MUST WATCH – The Noises Off Offical Trailer

Michael Frayn’s Noises Off starring Matthew Kelly, Liza Goddard and Simon Shepherd is at Blackpool Grand Theatre from Tuesday 3 to Saturday 7 October 2023 with evening and matinee performances.

Tickets from £18.50 with concessions and group rates available.

Celebrate the 40^th anniversary of Noises Off with a GRAND SPECIAL OFFER!

Purchase two top-price tickets for the OPENING NIGHT of Noises Off and get a FREE SILVER 1894 Club Membership for Blackpool Grand Theatre. The 1894 Club offers access to exclusive ticket offers and savings, special invites, priority booking, access to the exclusive 1894 Club box, priority seating, competitions, discounts at the theatre bar and much, much more.

Book your opening night seats now. It’s the perfect time to join the Club! Click here to find out more

Call the box office on 01253 290 190 for bookings and further information or visit blackpoolgrand.co.uk for full show listings and bookings.

Please note – The 1894 Club Offer is available ONLY at the time of booking on tickets purchased by phone (01253 290190) or in person at the Box Office. This limited-time offer is for top-price tickets only for opening night and is not available on membership renewals, is only available at the point of purchase and cannot be applied after booking. Upgrades to other membership levels are also available at an extra cost.