Alarms & Excursions

What happens when there is an annoying beep in your home and you’ve no idea where it’s coming from? Or you’re stuck at the airport waiting for a lift and you keep getting the answer-phone? What happens when the air stewardess has to give the same speech over the intercom yet again? Or you get that deja-vu feeling when you arrive in yet another hotel room?

ALARMS & EXCURSIONS sees Michael Frayn’s return to the Manoel Theatre in sparkling comic form as he takes a wry look at our increasingly desperate reliance on technology. In the opening play, ‘Alarms’, a cosy dinner party collapses in mayhem as the gadgets turn on their masters. In the final play ‘Immobiles’ the numerous phones and phone messages lead to total confusion and increasing desperation. And there are six other hilarious plays in between….

ALARMS & EXCURSIONS is a clever light buffet of ideas from a master of observational comedy. It is a welcome reminder of Michael Frayn’s extraordinary talent. His other brilliant plays already performed at the Manoel Theatre were Noises Off and Copenhagen. With ALARMS & EXCURSIONS, Michael Frayn has left the brainy science of Copenhagen behind and returned to the wild comic invention of Noises Off. In fact, The London Guardian called ALARMS & EXCURSIONS “The funniest play of 1998!”, while the London Sunday Times raved “This is simply breathtakingly, comfortingly and appallingly funny”.