Noises Off

The actress Dotty plays the character of Mrs. Clackett. Mrs. Clackett is described as “a housekeeper of character” (11). She tries to help Philip avoid Inland Revenue and approves of Roger showing the house to Vicki. However, Mrs. Clackett really just wants to sit down with a plate of sardines and watch a race on her employer’s television. She is from a lower socioeconomic class than the Brents, and their television—and house—is nicer than hers.

Dotty is an actress in late middle age with some past success in her career. She has invested her own money in putting on the play, hoping to create a financial return to “buy a little house” (29). This reflects the parodic real estate premise of Nothing On but is also a satirical and melancholy reflection on the insecurity of the acting life, especially for women as they get older. “Dotty” is short for “Dorothy” but is also an English slang term for someone who is eccentric or unreliable, especially in older age. Dotty is a disruptive character. In particular, she is flirtatious and a gossip, satirizing the style of a leading lady with good looks, perhaps especially one who is aware of advancing years. In Act I, she is enamored of Garry, and he of her. Between Acts I and II, Dotty becomes interested in a journalist. She also has drinks with Frederick and goes back to his room the night before the performance shown in Act II. By Act III, Dotty and Belinda are vying for Frederick’s attention. Dotty is also responsible for telling Brooke and Poppy that Lloyd is cheating on them with each other. These activities cause at least half of the backstage drama. As a result, her sexual choices jeopardize her ability to make money on the show, forming much of her character’s pathos. 

Dotty’s acting experience and professionalism on stage are important to her role in Noises Off, although the play shows this being eroded as Nothing On deteriorates into chaos. Through Acts I and II, Dotty is the most reliable performer on stage. In Act III, she tries to improvise as Mrs. Clackett to clean up sardines and keep the forward momentum of the show: Her improvisational skills are much better than Brooke’s but not as practical as Belinda’s. As Act III progresses, however, Dotty becomes hyper-focused on the sardines and fails to deliver her lines and advance the plot of Nothing On, increasingly living up to her name. However, she is still able to take professional direction: Belinda is able to direct Dotty into taking part in the supposedly happy ending of the wedding between Lloyd and his two brides.

Garry is the actor-character who plays the role of Roger. Roger is described in the script as in his thirties and someone who “handles high-class real estate” (14). Roger is part of the firm Squire, Squire, Hackham, and Dudley, which rents out the Brents’ house while they are in Spain. Roger is interested in sleeping with Vicki before showing the house to a prospective tenant. This sexual motivation, as well as Roger’s desire to know who (or what) is in the house, inspires much of the farce of Nothing On and is part of Noises Off’s parody of the stereotypical English bedroom farce and its reliance on sexual taboo and embarrassment for comedic value. 

Garry is a parody of the stereotypical leading-man actor, obsessed with his own status and sexually jealous of women. His behavior creates absurdity in Noises Off and facilitates the increasing chaos of the action. He is besotted with Dotty during the rehearsal in Act I. After Dotty’s flirtations with other men, Garry becomes angry with her. In Act II, he uses the sardines to express his rage at seeing her touch other men backstage. He also attempts to use an axe on Dotty and other cast members because of his jealousy. In return, Dotty ties Garry’s shoelaces together, causing him to fall and hop around in a comical fashion. Garry helps fill in the blanks left when Dotty is distracted by the sardines.

Frayn creates Garry as an inarticulate character, a satire on the supposed linguistic facility of actors. Garry uses a number of vague phrases, which severely limits his improvisation in both Acts II and III. For instance, he improvises by saying, “Is it you…? I mean, you know, hidden under all the sheets and towels in here…I can’t just stand here and, you know, indefinitely” (112). The phrase “you know” replaces any actual information. This reflects the way Garry talks when he is out of character. In Act I, when the rehearsal is stopped, Garry says, “[W]e’re all of us feeling pretty much, you know” (15). His vague phrasing is not a product of stage fright but a consistent mannerism. In Act III, his fall (over misplaced props) signals the complete unraveling of the script.

Brooke plays the character of Vicki. Vicki is an attractive woman in her twenties who works for Inland Revenue. Vicki is clearly interested in having sex with Roger but becomes concerned about this impacting her professional reputation as the risk of being caught increases. Her character’s internal anxiety is paralleled physically by the fact that, through farcical mishaps, Vicki spends most of the first act of Nothing On wearing only her underwear. After losing her dress, Vicki puts on various things, like a sheet, to cover her underwear, creating absurdity and the occasion for continued farcical errors. Vicki’s character forms part of Noises Off’s parody of the theater and sexual farce through Nothing On, especially to the extent that it relies on the objectification of women’s bodies and the taboos of female sexual behavior. The combination of Vicki’s physical attractiveness and her career success is designed to create a contrast with the stereotypical young female sex-interest of the bedroom farce, highlighting the double standard faced by women in Vicki’s position. While Roger is afraid of being caught using the Brents’ house for sex, Vicki is anxious that the affair itself will ruin her professional reputation.

In contrast to the character of Vicki, the actor-character Brooke is a deliberate stereotype of the young, attractive actress with little talent. Brooke’s role is to create interruptions and frustrate the play’s action through misunderstandings and confusion. She is frequently confused, asking questions like “Would who?” and “Would what?” (27). Brooke generally doesn’t catch on to what’s happening around her. She also wears contact lenses and repeatedly loses them while acting, causing interruptions. In rehearsal, the rest of the cast stops to look for her lost contacts, but during performances, Brooke ends up running into things, like the sofa, when she loses a contact. As a sign of her poor acting technique, Brooke is completely unable to improvise. She can only read her lines from the script, in the order that they appear. In this way, she is the most loyal to the text of Nothing On but can’t make that text comprehensible to an audience when other actors begin improvising.

Brooke is one of Lloyd’s romantic interests, forming part of the love triangle of Noises Off and its doubled sexual satire. She has to compete with Poppy for Lloyd’s attention, but Lloyd tends to prioritize Brooke because she is willing to leave the show when she is upset. Unlike Dotty, who invested her own money in the show, Brooke is ready to leave by the beginning of Act II. Despite being unable to improvise, Brooke is pulled into a hastily constructed happy ending by Belinda and ends the play as one of Lloyd’s brides, still stuck in a sheet, a visual joke that encapsulates her character and role.

The actor Frederick is called Freddie by the other members of the theater company and plays the role of Philip. The script of Nothing On describes Philip as a playwright in his forties. He is in trouble with Inland Revenue for spending too much time in England while being registered in Spain for tax purposes. Most of his motivation in the play is to try to make it seem like he isn’t in England; he tells Mrs. Clackett to say he’s not there. Philip also tries to glue shut a letter from Inland Revenue that he shouldn’t have seen because he is supposedly in Spain: “I can’t come to bed! I’m glued to a tax demand!” (53). This reflects the absurdity that he must sneak into his own house for a romantic tryst with his wife, further complicated as a farce through the introduction of the letter and other characters. Philip is a caricature of the affluent, socially aspirant 1980s man. Although he is venal and anxious about his status, he is portrayed as a sympathetic—if rather helpless—character. Much of the comedy of Nothing On relies on the fact that Philip appears to be having an affair, although he is in fact faithful to his wife. 

Philip’s sexual faithfulness and haplessness are mirrored by the actor-character of Frederick, who plays him. Frederick deliberately becomes part of a triangle with Garry and Dotty. Frederick’s main quality is his lack of mental acuity. Garry calls him a “poor halfwit” (90). Frederick apologizes for being “stupid about plot” and “stupid about moves” (71, 37), as well as for his “usual dimness” (37). This dimness leads to Frederick being innocently pulled in the middle of Garry and Dotty backstage. Frederick’s wife left him before the rehearsal in Act I. He is therefore shown to be emotionally vulnerable and susceptible to the machinations of others who are more clever than him.

Frayn translates this vulnerability into a physical characteristic that facilitates the chaos of the play: On and off stage, Frederick gets nosebleeds when he sees violence. When he isn’t bleeding on stage, he can follow Belinda’s lead in improvising, but when he gets a nosebleed, he stops being able to improvise. Unlike Brooke, Frederick doesn’t revert to the script; he stops being able to perform completely. He also is momentarily distracted by the sardines but is far less fixated on them than Dotty. Near the end of Act III, Frederick repeats the line that is the burglar’s cue three times, causing Selsdon, Tim, and Lloyd to all come on as the burglar. Here, he is too focused on the script and not paying attention to the consequences of his repetitive choice.

The actress Belinda plays the character Flavia, who is described as being in her thirties and well matched with Philip. When Philip becomes more interested in the tax demand than in having sex with her, Flavia begins to go through the attic and other rooms. After she finds Vicki’s dress and sees Philip’s pants falling off, Flavia suspects that Philip is having an affair right in front of her. At the end of Act I of Nothing On, Flavia still believes this: Ostensibly, this is the sexual misunderstanding that Nothing On will resolve, but this is never shown in Noises Off because of the absurdist repetition of the first act.

Belinda is portrayed as a gossip who trades information as a means to gain status. She knows about the relationships between Garry and Dotty, and Lloyd and Brooke, as well as about Frederick’s relationship status. Belinda doesn’t know about Lloyd and Poppy; Belinda learns this gossip when Brooke does. After Frederick and Dotty go out for drinks, Belinda starts to compete with Dotty for Frederick’s attention. At the beginning of Act III, Belinda tells Dotty to take her “[h]ands off Freddie” backstage (138), but it can be heard on stage. This is one of the clues to the action that the audience can’t see in Act III, when the point of view is from the front-of-house. Only Belinda’s words can be heard, not the handsy gesture she refers to—a joke that refers to the eponymous “noises off” of the play. 

Belinda is a clever and resourceful actor. Her ability to shape the action of Nothing On is doubled by her ability to manipulate others off stage. She is often the first to take charge when her co-stars stray from the script and reports what is happening to Lloyd. Before the performance begins in Act II, Belinda tells Lloyd, “My sweet, we’re having great dramas downstairs!” (86). This is a reference to the interpersonal drama in the dressing rooms. When she takes charge near the end of Act III, she channels Lloyd. She repeats his comments about farce, life, and sardines. Also, she structures the new happy ending around Lloyd’s personal drama, favoring Brooke as his bride, while Dotty favors Poppy as Lloyd’s bride. Like Lloyd, Belinda connects the drama of real life with the drama of the theater.

Selsdon plays the character who is only referred to as “Burglar” in the script of Nothing On. The burglar is in his seventies and has “great character but is in need of extensive repair and modernization” (38). This is part of the play’s extended joke comparing characters to property. The burglar monologues about missing the good old days when he stole more valuable items and struggling to adjust to retirement. When seen by Philip and Roger, he claims to be a plumber. At the end of Nothing On’s first act, the burglar reveals that he is Vicki’s father. His last line is supposed to be “When all around is strife and uncertainty, there’s nothing like […] a good old-fashioned plate of […] sardines” (76). However, Selsdon repeatedly forgets the word “sardines.”

Selsdon is an actor late in his career. His character is a satire on the aging leading repertory actor, which creates pathos as well as comedy. Selsdon often experiences difficulties hearing and drinks heavily throughout Noises Off. When he encounters the bottle of whiskey, he takes it away and starts drinking. The backstage farce surrounding Selsdon is the others taking the bottle away from Selsdon, hiding it, and him finding it. The cast and crew also have to frequently locate Selsdon, repeating his name, to make sure he isn’t “tipping a glass or raising the elbow” (27). Selsdon frequently mishears what others say due to his hearing loss. In Act II, Poppy tells Lloyd that she is having a baby instead of offering the word “sardines” when Selsdon forgets it. He hears, and repeats, “gravy” (137). In Act III, at the very end of Noises Off, Selsdon forgets the final word of Nothing On’s first act, despite the many plates of sardines, and the cast calls for the curtain instead of giving him the correct last word. Although he creates much of the play’s comic chaos, Selsdon’s character is melancholic, as he portrays a professional actor who is approaching the end of a challenging career and, increasingly, unable to work.

Tim is the stage manager of the company. Tim is reliable and professional and is shown struggling to overcome the many difficulties of his job. Prior to Act I, he built the set for Nothing On almost entirely by himself, as Lloyd was occupied with his romance with Brooke at the time. This led to Tim being extremely tired and not very lucid during Act I. He falls asleep and asks things like “Do something?” (26). Tim is also established as Selsdon’s understudy in Act I and as a double for Philip. In Act II, Tim and Poppy try to reassure the audience that the performance will begin shortly and negotiate the backstage drama. However, Lloyd insists that Tim abandon his backstage duties and repeatedly buy flowers for Lloyd to give to Brooke. Tim is resigned to his role and repeatedly puts on his raincoat to complete the errand. This coat, put on backward, is used later in place of a sheet when Tim goes on as Philip’s double.

In Act III, Tim goes out in person to reassure the audience that the performance is about to begin, instead of talking over the speakers as Poppy does. Tim also has to go on for Philip, not only as his double but also in his place to deliver the lines about reading the tax demand. Tim isn’t very convincing, as he has to explain why he looks nothing like Philip did in his previous moment on stage. However, Tim is able to improvise lines that reassure Dotty about Frederick’s condition backstage and convey the information in the lines she doesn’t deliver. In other words, he has more improvisational ability than Brooke but doesn’t take control through improvisation like Belinda. Later in the act, Tim comes out and delivers the burglar’s monologue with Selsdon and Lloyd. At the very end of Act III, Tim has to run off stage while still in his costume as Philip’s double to pull down the curtain.