4c Overcast
Noises Off, Mold Clwyd Theatr Cymru
ANYONE who’s ever been drawn into the chaotic world of amateur theatre productions is bound to appreciate a madcap comedy coming to Mold this month. That’s the view of veteran actor Philip Bretherton, who has boldly ventured back onto the stage after stints on Coronation Street and Footballers Wives to star in Noises Off, being launched at Clwyd Theatr Cymru next Thursday. "I’ve done quite a bit of comedy before, but things like this are a lot of fun. It’s comedy we’ve done with totally straight faces, but it’s still a comedy of errors, and very much a deliberate farce full of mistaken identities and cases of peoples’ trousers falling off" said Philip, who plays director Lloyd Dallas in the show. "It’s very fast paced and uses a lot of miming, but if you’ve ever got involved in amateur drama I think it’s something you’ll get instantly. Even if you haven’t, because you get to see a play about a play from almost every angle, you’ll still be able to appreciate it." Noises Off aims to highlight just how badly a theatrical production can go wrong, and sees the production of Nothing On, a fictional sex comedy, quickly disintegrate with hilarious consequences as it tours the regional circuit across the UK. Mr Bretherton says even after years of working both on stage and television, the work required for the new play gave him new challenges. "You always want to really get into it, as when you get something like this right, that’s where the laughs and the gags will come from. It’s an interesting idea and definitely ironic but in order to get things going wrong to look right, the actual production of the play itself has to be a very well oiled machine" he added. "It was thoroughly confusing when we first began work on it, as the script seems to run inside-out and back-to-front simply because of the nature of this play. To do something really badly, you actually have to do it really well." Yet despite having performed in theatre for decades, Philip is still best remembered for his years playing Alistair Deacon in nineties BBC drama As Time Goes By and a variety of roles he has played in Coronation Street since the late 1980s, notably as love rat car salesman Ian Davenport in 2004. "I still get people asking me about it in the street, especially when I’m working in Manchester. Some people think I actually am Ian, and shout all sorts of things at me!" "Luckily, I discovered recently that Ian Davenport’s character has never actually been killed off, which means I could return, which is more than I can say for the character I played in Casualty. Getting killed off in Casualty is never a good career move, because then you can never do anything in Holby City either." Noises Off, Mold Clwyd Theatre Cymryu February 19 - 14, tickets from £9, 0845 330 3565 or www.clwyd-theatr-cymru.co.uk
