Noises Off! Details

Robbed of its essentially theatrical device — the comic contrast between off-stage chaos and on-stage calculation — this American adaptation of Michael Frayn's West End play provides more than enough laughs to skim over the potholes of improbability. Peter Bogdanovich's quick-fire direction is matched and aided by some wondrously staccato performances, notably from Carol Burnett, Michael Caine and Christopher Reeve. Luvvies at play have never been so pompously vulnerable or so sympathetic.

Brave though misguided attempt to transfer to the screen an intensely theatrical work, depending on live performance for its effect. It begins well but soon ceases to amuse.