Lloyd Dallas is the director of a theatre company. He's desperately trying to produce the farce 'Nothing On', but with a z-list cast, an exhausted crew, things are not going to plan. 
We follow the production from final rehearsals, through opening night, and onto the regional tour: as with any group of actors forced to work closely together for any great length of time, romances and arguments are bound to break out. Quite often, what's happening on stage is nothing compared to what's happening backstage....

What the audiences said ....

Brilliant! Congratulations to whole company - wonderful evening! Must have taken aeons of hard work...If I had another free evening, I'd be there again to catch all the cameos I missed! (CF-C, Kennington)

Very funny and everyone was amazing. Well done!! (BH, Faringdon)

Our friends @AmEgosTheatre are very talented, funny and clever. Hilarious show, Noises Off. A fabulous night out #localtheatre (@wantageOrch)

Noises Off hilarious. (Don’t know how they know where to be, when). AmAzing @AmEgosTheatre . Get a ticket while you can! #Wantage (SC, Wantage)

Fantastic show, laughed so much! (RW, Ardington)

Bravo Amegos! Superb performance tonight, much enjoyed by everyone there! Enjoy your next two!!  (JC, East Hanney)

Loved it last night [Thursday]. Have been going over that second scene all day. It was serious perfection. Choreographed to a tee! (Anon, Didcot)

Just a word of gratitude for a  great evenings entertainment. Every character was so convincing I had tears running down my face with laughter at all the antics. Clever play, brilliant direction, funniest cast. Thank you all. Best wishes for the rest of the week. (SB, by email)

Just seen the play and it was brilliant.  We were in stitches from beginning to end.(BL, Wantage)

Such a great performance by every single one of you guys! And super funny! Well done to you all.(JS, Wantage)

I haven't laughed so much in ages! (RP, Devon)

Tremendous production last night, we loved it. Congratulations to all the cast and crew. It must be exhausting! (PS, Newbury)

Thanks for tonight - a great show. Really enjoyed it. Major credit for tackling it - it takes an awful lot of work to pull something like that off. Please pass on my congratulations to your fab cast! (SB, Wantage)

Brilliant show last night – we really enjoyed it and laughed  a lot! Another Amegos smash! Congratulations to all involved – how on earth you all learnt that dialogue and the actions, heaven knows.(PW, Faringdon)

Well done to Amegos for last night's hearty and hilarious performance of Noises Off. The cast were excellent, the set, as I expected it to be, was superb (well done, Rob). Great performances all round! I thoroughly enjoyed the production,  I recommend to anyone who wants to banish the winter blues for one evening to go and see this excellent performance of a brilliantly written farce. Amegos — as they always do — give a shining performance! (SR, Abingdon)

Oh wow! What a fantastic production! .. thoroughly enjoyed it. Exhausted just watching it! What a lot of hard work you have all put in but boy has it paid off! (LH, Wantage)

Saw an absolutely amazing production of "Noises Off" in Wantage by AmEgos Theatre Group tonight. Highly recommended and on till Saturday if you want to catch it (MP, Hanney)

That was absolutely brilliant!  So glad we came. We literally laughed till it hurt...Great timing and characterisation...Superb delivery...Amazing falls...Wonderful infectious energy...Everyone left the theatre bubbling with joy...We talked about all the way home and I expect the memory to stay with us forever. 
Well done all! (RV, Buscot)

Just wanted to thank you for the play last night. I was laughing so much I had tears running down my face.  How you managed all the lines and the timing I just don’t know.  You were all brilliant!! (DC, Bracknell)

 AMAZINGGGGGG - superb set, great timing and an all round professional show. A pleasure and a privilege to be in the audience (DH, Hendred)

Review ...
Michael Frayn’s superb theatrical farce “Noises Off ” has always been a favourite of mine; not only is it a brilliantly funny play, it’s also one that I took part in myself many years ago. I vividly recall all of the hard work that went into our production of this notoriously complex piece – it’s based on the misfortunes of a dysfunctional touring company and so requires actors to play actors, both on and off stage. It’s also based on a stage set that revolves, so in one act you see the play from the audience’s point of view, then in the next act you see the same play but from backstage… so all in all, quite a challenge!
I had seen the AmEgoS production of “Into the Woods” earlier this year and had been very impressed, so had a feeling that I would be in for a treat with this one. It soon became clear that this was a very accomplished cast who had been rehearsed to within an inch of their life – it’s not easy to put on a tightly choreographed performance of a terrible performance, with fluffed lines, missed cues, pratfalls and other mishaps all delivered with perfect comic timing! The whole cast were brilliant, and included our own Edmund Bennett looking like a rabbit in the headlights, trousers round his ankles, as chaos reigned around him. Other actors included Helen Harrison as a brilliantly vacant Brooke Ashton, unable to deviate from the script no matter what goes wrong, and Rob Thorpe as Lloyd Dallas, the
director of the fictional play-within-a-play “Nothing On”, who had in common with other members of the cast a great way of making dialogue sound natural and unscripted, with all of the hesitations, interruptions and irregular cadences of real speech.

A highlight for me was act two, the play seen from backstage as the cast fight amongst themselves, performed with an almost balletic fluency that must have come from hours of practice. As the play came to an end in complete and utter chaos, with three characters on stage speaking the same lines simultaneously and prop sardines being flung at the audience, the sense of joy and relief from the cast was almost palpable – this is a tremendously rewarding play to perform despite (or maybe because of) all of the hard work, and to get through it successfully feels like nothing on earth.
AmEgoS have pulled it off again, and I for one can’t wait to see their next production.
Martin Redhead, Didcot Phoenix Players

Meet The Cast ...
Photos by Mel Taylor Photography
Copyright Mel Taylor Photography / AmEgos 2015