THE NOISE NEXT DOOR: CHAOS CONTROL – SHOW REVIEWS
“A compact stage benefits this quintet’s matey charm and it’s refreshing to see improv performed with such a professional lack of corpsing. Audience members are incorporated but not humiliated and there’s a great deal of fun to be had in spotting the impending gags. It’s very rare to see improv comedy so consistently hit the mark.” **** The List
“The Noise Next Door are five hyperactive, hypermobile performers, whose lively and unpredictable show is a exemplar of high-quality, high-energy improvised comedy. In a twist on the usual format, they structure their show around the establishment of an agency to fight evil, asking the audience for suggestions regarding their underground lair, the identity of their nemesis, and the format of a secret mission. It’s a clever set-up, marking their show out as distinct from the many other improv troupes on the Fringe, and – with the help of some inspired audience contributions – they create a brilliantly funny hour of preposterous scenarios and over-the-top characters. The interplay between this close-knit group and their astounding physical, facial, verbal, and lyrical dexterity is impressive and consistently entertaining. Accompanied by a quick-thinking guitarist, they also belt out some musical numbers, in an impressive range of genres, including some lightning-fast freestyle rapping. Overall, this is fun, well-executed and original improvised comedy.” **** Broadway Baby (Beth Kahn)
“The Noise Next Door consist of Charlie Granville, Tom Livingstone, Matt Grant, Tom Houghton and Sam Pacelli, with Nathan Marshall on guitar.
This improvised comedy show from The Noise Next Door is unlike anything you have ever seen before. Featuring some corny pubs and witty one-liners, ‘Chaos Control’ is hilarious and sheer genius, excellently improvised and incredibly well presented. The show follows a vague structure about forming a secret agency, but aside of that relies upon audience input. As such, the show varies greatly from performance to performance, but the key fact still remains, that the boys of this ‘camp comedy troupe’ can tackle almost anything the audience suggest to them; ranging from Viking Techno music about Goblin Ninjas, to Richard Branson being hidden away due to constipation.
At times this show can be incredibly bizarre, but it is in this that it’s merit lies – the way in which all of the performers manage to instantaneously create scenes or vocalise songs is nothing short of impressive and almost unbelievable, this is especially the case with guitarist Nathan Marshall who seems to be able to provide musical accompaniment for anything and everything and in every conceivable style. What makes this show even better is that the boys give you everything – great comedy, stunning improvisation and – described as a ‘comedy JLS’ – they can sing! If their comedy ever fails (which in some ways unfortunately it never will) The Noise Next Door could always form a boyband – maybe an option for next year’s Fringe guys?!
Chaos Control is most definitely worth more than the price of a ticket, and I recommend you all pen it into you Fringe planners.” **** ScotsGay
“The penultimate, particularly hectic section of The Noise Next Door’s new show Chaos Control doesn’t work at all. The longer it goes on, the less idea you have what the members of this quickfire improv troupe are trying to achieve, and it exhibits the worst traditional vice of this style of comedy in that the performers seem to be having far more fun than the audience.
Not so the rest of the show, a hodge-podge of off-the-cuff rhyming, (atrocious) dancing and all-round silliness that is often riotously enjoyable. It kicks off with these five young fellows embarking on a “mission”, its various components yelled out in turn from a very willling audience and incorporated with lightning speed into the skit. On the evening I caught them, the result was an agreably surreal adventure in which The Magic Roundabout’s Zebedee led the forces of good against Darth Vader, who was holed up in Worcester Cathedral.
Ok, maybe you had to be there. But had you been, you would have laughed a lot, as well as being treated to — among other things – a hilariously lubricious R&B love song, as well as a mini-musical that incorporated panto, folk and death-metal.
In fact, the death metal vocals sounded very and inexplicably Jamaican. Much as, when we collectively cooked up a drama in which a sausage roll was going to be crucified in the Kellogg’s factory, and four of the troupe gave the fifth punning clues as to what was going on, he came up with the still more improbable: “Are you hiding a sausage-roll that is turning into Jesus?”
The quintet win either way. When they guess correctly, or nail an impression, accent, or rhyme, the speed of thought is both impressive and funny. When they fall flat on their faces, such are the zest and all-round good humour radiating from the stage that, although less impressive, it’s funnier still. That late, scrappable section aside, this is definitely a superior kind of chaos.” **** The Telegraph (Mark Monahan)
The Noise Next Door
You Would Never Believe…Between the 5 guys, one loves mozzarella, there’s a 258 top bowling score, 5 years spent in Kenya, crying on cue, making a belly look pregnant and one has the word ‘flange’ tatooed on an arm.
Edinburgh Show: The Noise Next Door: Chaos Control
Where: 33 Pleasance – Courtyard
When: 4-30 Aug (not 11,18) (Previews 4,5,6)
Time: 7.00pm
Show Summary: Earth-shattering secrets & Impossible odds. Our mission: Protect mankind, kick ass…and bag sexy chicks. Audience suggestions are transformed into fantastically funny scenes and songs, exposing society’s secrets and unleashing ludicrous characters, witty one-liners and explosive physicality.
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