A play about putting on a play, especially when that play is a farce, offers endless possibilities for merriment and madness, and that’s exactly what audiences got with the Adamson Theatre Company’s Senior School production of Michael Frayn’s Noises Off last term at the St Kilda Road Campus.

For the uninitiated, Noises Off is a stage direction denoting sounds coming from offstage, and the delight with this show is that the whirlwind of offstage mishaps and misadventures, normally hidden from the audience, is placed front and centre.

The young players brought a madcap energy to this production, relishing the opportunity to play larger-than-life characters with generous dollops of slapstick comedy. In short, there was lots of shouting, doors opening and closing and trousers falling down, all timed to perfection.

In Act I, we watch the play in chaotic rehearsal, before the set is flipped in Act II for a literal backstage view of an even more chaotic performance.

‘Act II had no dialogue, making character work and movement essential to the storytelling,’ said Alessi (Year 12), who played Poppy. ‘Working through the humour and physicality of the scenes was incredibly fun.’

‘The organised chaos every actor on stage has to portray was definitely a challenge,’ said Jack (Year 12), who played Lloyd, the director. ‘Making sure you’re in the right place at the right time, before you have to go sprinting to do your next action, was quite tiring and often very confusing.’

Ethan (Year 12), agreed. ‘You've got to place absolute faith in your cast mates - that they'll be in the right place, with the right prop, at the right time and be able to improvise with you to cover any mistakes!’

The success of the show was all the more impressive for the fact it came together in five short weeks of rehearsal.

‘Farce relies on timing and precision,’ said Marcus Pinnell, who co-directed with Haley McNally. ‘There’s definitely a misconception that drama is harder to perform than comedy. For comedy to work, you need the show to be incredibly tight and for your audience to be generous. Young actors can only really control one of those things.’