Noises Off at the Bruce Mason Centre

By FRANCIS TILL

Michael Frayn's Noises Off is often hailed as the best stage comedy of the past 20 years and this beautifully realised Auckland Theatre Company production lives fully up to that billing.

A farce within a farce, a play about chaos, a stupendously complex physical comedy, a satirical exploration of theatre's clockwork interior, proof that sardines (and doors) are a primal force ...

There's something here for any audience, all of it almost excruciatingly funny.

The storyline is superficially direct: a company of muddled English actors stage and tour a farce called Full On.

We see them in the first act as they rehearse, and lay a minefield of eccentricities and relationships that explodes in act two, where we watch a performance ravel and unravel at supersonic speed from backstage.

The brief interlude between acts two and three is a special treat, as cast and crew realign John Parker's wonderful set in full view - earning applause in the process.

Act three is a completely disastrous performance of the play within the play, and it is at least as full on, charged in every particle with the malevolence of things that is the primal engine of superior farce.

Brilliant direction from Elric Hooper - who brought us Frayn's elegant Copenhagen last season - is clearly evident in every scene.

The play would simply fly apart without a master at the helm, but Hooper's hand is so sure that this production may be among the best in the play's 20-year history.

Hooper's task is made easier by consistently gem-quality performances from a stellar cast who clearly relish what they're doing.

Centrepieces include Ilona Rodgers' magnificently dotty Dotty Otley, Peter Elliott's wryly ribald director Lloyd Dallas and Geraldine Brophy's motherish vamp Belinda Blair. Then there's Mark Hadlow's indefatigably earnest Frederick Fellowes, Paul Barrett's dipsomaniac Selsdon Mowbray, and Patrick Griffiths' unforgettable Gary Lejune, who elevates "You know, I mean" to Shakespearean dialogue.

Relative newcomers Sarah Sommerville and Stephen Brunton are faultless in roles as supporting staff. And Anna Hewlett's rendition of ingenue Brooke Ashton, the genre's obligatory bombshell, is a piece de resistance.