A farce by Michael Frayn? You mean that guy who wrote that heavy play Copenhagen we saw here a couple of years ago?

Yes, the very same. It is all about the things that can go wrong backstage in theatres. We all hope that things will never go quite this wrong at the Whitworth.

Other writers have tried to do the same thing, but their plays have never been as manic as this. When Noises Off was done in New York after a very successful run in London, the New York Times critic Frank Rich wrote that "It is, was, and probably ever will be the funniest play written in my lifetime". After his retirement Rich recalled that it was the single funniest play he ever saw as a critic. In London it won both the Evening Standard and Olivier Best Comedy Awards in 1982.

The span of Frayn's work is enormous. Ten novels, both comic and serious, short stories, a dozen plays and ten works of non-fiction, including The Human Touch, a work of philosophy.

He spent his National Service years learning Russian and was selected, from the top pupils in the Linguists' Joint Services School, to take the course at Cambridge University where he returned to take his degree after demob. He probably didn't realise, at the time, how useful his knowledge of Russian would become for translations of Chekov. He is now considered to be Britain's finest translator of Chekov. Not only has he translated the four major plays but also an early play, Platanov, which became Wild Honey and another National Theatre success.

He began his career as a journalist writing for The Guardian and The Observer. It is no accident that his degree, at Emmanuel College, was in Moral Sciences (Philosophy). His work, as in Copenhagen, Democracy and in novels such as Headlong and Spies often revolves around moral choices and shows an acute political awareness.

Getting things deliberately wrong is probably more difficult than making mistakes by accident. You can judge whether our Noises Off team have managed to get it right (getting it wrong!) Come, watch and laugh.

BILL BRAY, Theatre Correspondent

"That's what it's all about. Doors and sardines. Getting on - getting off. Getting the sardines on - getting the sardines off. That's farce. That's theatre. That's life."

Thus, Lloyd Dallas, director of Nothing On, the dire bedroom farce by Robin Housemonger, seeks to motivate his actors and imbue them with confidence.

But all is not well with the sardines or the doors...or the telephone for that matter. Not only do the hapless Nothing On cast struggle with unhelpful props, they have to contend with adulteries real and imagined, forgetfulness, and drunkenness. Their struggle becomes ever more desperate as they descend from a fraught small-hours final dress rehearsal in Weston-Super-Mare to total chaos in an evening performance in Stockton-on-Tees some weeks later.

For this production of Michael Frayn's brilliant 'farce within a farce' the GWT welcomes to its stage, Scott Shearer, playing Lloyd Dallas, frustrated Shakespearean director. Suzanne Briggs delights us with her sardines as Dotty Otley, a character actress of a certain age. Damon Unwin and John Wilson, play Garry Lejeune and Frederick Fellowes, glamorous matinee idols, vying for Dotty's affections. Claire Lewis-McClean fumbles her way through the script as Brooke Shields, a desirable property, well-built and beautifully maintained throughout. Keeping the backstage gossip going with perfect timing is Belinda Blair, played by Natalie Smith. Seeking desperately to keep the show on the road, or at least the sardines on the plates, are Tim Allgood the much put-upon stage manager, (Keith Dunn) and his assistant Poppy Norton-Taylor, (Aysev Ismail), who has more than doors and telephones to worry about - just what is her secret? The Nothing On cast is completed by Peter Lang, who portrays Selsdon Mowbray, veteran of stage and pub.

Come and support the battle scarred company as they move helplessly towards their disastrous last night.

LESLEY ROBINS, director