THE NOISE NEXT DOOR:
THEIR FINEST HOUR
AS PART OF THE EDINBURGH FESTIVAL FRINGE 2011
Venue: Pleasance – Beneath (Venue 33)
Dates: 3rd to 29th August 2011 (not 10th or 17th)
Time: 4.30pm (5.30pm)
Box office: 0131 556 6550
Internet: www.pleasance.co.uk
www.edfringe.co.uk
“RIOTOUSLY ENJOYABLE” **** Telegraph
Following the four-star critical acclaim of their 2010 show, Chaos Control, The Noise Next Door return to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this year with another dose of white-hot comedy that’ll leave you gasping in amazement.
With each show a totally unique comedy experience, audiences return again and again for a dose of The Noise Next Door’s unique cutting edge brand of off-the-cuff humour.
This year they are setting out to push the boundaries of instant Comedy even further by energising and reinventing improvised comedy formats to their utmost limits.
This is comedy at its purest and instantaneous best.
“a delight to watch” ***** Three Weeks
Date of live review: Saturday 20th Aug, ‘11
The Noise Next Door is a high-energy improv troupe whose talents are impressively varied; ‘Their Finest Hour’ combines comic songs, sketch and even ballet, along with a healthy dose of cheesy puns. Even the methods by which they glean audience suggestions are assorted and ingenious; in addition to the usual calling-out of words, the audience is asked to draw pictures and, at one point, donate a text message as inspiration for the next routine. The collective is witty and sharp throughout, and a delight to watch. Its members clearly enjoy being on stage and their marvellously self-conscious style, which consists largely in taking the piss out of each other, has the audience in stitches. A very fine hour indeed.
Review by Lisa McNally. Fringe Guru. Saturday 20th August
“The beauty of the show is that, no two performances are the same, which keeps bringing people back” **** Edinburgh Spotlight
Date of live review: Tuesday 9th Aug, ‘11
As the room gradually fills, and people take their seats, they are serenaded by two of the members from the group. Also up in the corner of the room, there are two puppets similar to Statler and Waldorf (from the Muppets) messing around with each other, and also anyone else that gets too close to them.
The light’s go down and instantly the 5 of them burst onto stage, with a cloud of white dust accompanying them – which hangs in the air for the first few minutes, leaving the place smelling of talcum powder. Dressed in their trademark attire of all black, each with different coloured ties. They start the show with a song about 5 of the audience members Perfect Partner’s, singing about random characters to a well choreographed dance routine. The song at the start gives the room a vibe and everyone is eager to see what’s next.
Suggestions from the crowd help them to carry out a rather strange mission to and from the moon to save Carol Vordermon, and then destroy her using avocado oil – yes it does get as crazy as this. A txt from a borrowed mobile phone acts as the conversation between an audience member (played by Tom) and in this show a suggested Charles Dickens. This left the audience asking ‘please sir, can we have some more’ – with this theme recurring throughout. Sound effects and spotlights are used very well to add to the txt message theme.
With lots of side games between members, with an indie song about a relationship with a robot to an encounter between Harry Potter and Voldermort talking about Barack Obama, the audience is kept entertained for the full hour – and it is definitely their finest. It is easy to see that they have been performing together for 6 years, as they bounce off each other, with small comments like “You know far too much about (Harry Potter) that topic” and have the audience laughing throughout.
The simple-ness of the 5 members standing in a lift, acting as 5 random fictional/ non-fictional characters at the end is a brilliant finale. The beauty of the show is that, no two performances are the same, which keeps bringing people back.
Review by Elliot Bibby
“sublime comedy” **** Chortle
Date of live review: Friday 5th Aug, ‘11
“It can be difficult reviewing shows on the first day of Fringe previews. Technically anyone who has said they are happy to be reviewed should be ready… but how many really are?
But if you’re using suggestions from the crowd as the basis of your show then every day is a first day. The only thing that improv troupe The Noise Next Door need to do by way of rehearsal is a bit of warming up, and on this opening afternoon they’re showing no signs of rust. The fact that they’ve been working as a team for six years shows they’re a tight group without a weak link.
They appear on stage in their trademark garb: all black but for a different coloured tie each. And though I say there are five members, there are technically seven this year; as the audience enter the room a Statler-and-Waldorf-style puppet duo wearing the same look banter with each other and anyone who might come too close while two of the full size members of the troop serenade us.
They kick off proper with a song, a fitting display of their talents as each one adopts an attribute of the audience’s ‘perfect partner’ – on this occasion that turns out to be a female spy with four legs who likes Pokemon and can pull a condom over her head. The routine is perfectly choreographed and expertly sung and though some of the impromptu lyrics are a touch predictable, the strained exclamation, ‘I can’t breathe!’ from Charlie as the personification of ‘pulled-condom-over-head’ is simple but effective. Of course a song is an effective and dynamic way to get the energy up from the start in a typical Fringe sweat box of a venue on an unusually sunny day.
The key improv games are familiar ones, suggestions from the crowd inform a scene and, on occasion, audience members are plucked out of their seats to help out. But Noise differ in that they have created their own games from the premise. An early game sees not one scene but five (though I may have lost count) cutting across each other thick and fast. A borrowed mobile phone from the crowd begins the story of Winnie the Pooh entering into a text exchange and a subsequent trip to Berlin and audience drawings inspire a whole ballet.
There are plenty of endearing asides between the players drawing you into their world; they good naturedly pull each other up commenting, ‘can’t believe you got away with that joke’ and purple-tie Tom self referentially comments that ‘I know way too much about this for a 26-year-old man’ as he displays an impressive knowledge of A.A. Milne’s most famous creation.
Throughout the show some of the off-the-cuff quips are obvious – an indie song about a relationship with a gruff lady fire fighter includes a fair few gags about sliding down poles – but the acting, musical and choreography skills more than make up for it.
Plus there are plenty of moments of sublime comedy in the show; the improvised ballet imprints a mental image of two of the players in leotards that you’re not likely to forget in a hurry, a ’serious’ scene policed by the crowd armed with water pistols ordered to shoot when they spot inevitable corpsing from the performers is great fun and the final skit featuring Obama in a lift with some magical characters from myth is as fantastic as it is simple.”
Review by Marissa Burgess. Chortle
“ludicrously hilarious” ***** The Public Reviews
Date of live review: Tuesday 9th Aug, ‘11
I haven’t actually seen every single improvisation comedy show at Edinburgh – there are an awful lot – but I will stick my neck out and say that if a well known brewery made improvisation comedy, it would be ‘The Noise Next Door’, consisting of five outrageously talented and engaging young men. My throat was sore with laughter by the end of the hour, which was certainly exceedingly fine!
As ever, the group improvised sketches, dances and jokes based on suggestions from the audience. As a result, every show is necessarily different but somehow equal. In the show I saw, we perhaps predictably met Harry Potter and Voldemort; observed a love triangle played out via text messages between Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare and Hannah, an audience member; saw the entire crew of Apollo 11 digging on the moon for cheese; found an ideal partner who was a seven feet tall, hunchbacked fishmonger with a liking for chicken goujons; and enjoyed a ludicrously hilarious ballet based on drawings from the audience involving dinosaurs, stick men, hot air balloons and castles. We also discovered that there are very few jokes about squirrels.
The five are talented songsmiths. Their songs are made up on the spot from ridiculous audience suggestions and not only scan and rhyme but also make a twisted sort of sense. I have seen several of their performances in the past and never cease to marvel at this skill. In this colour-coded, close-knit troupe, there simply is no weak link.
I can’t recommend them highly enough – but would suggest you take throat pastilles with you!
Review by Selwyn Knight
“The Noise Next Door are attractive, talented, quick-witted and quick-thinking…astonishing talent” **** SG Fringe
Date of live review: Tuesday 9th Aug, ‘11
Improvised comedy, like anything, is not everyone’s cup of tea, although credit must be given to the pure skill, inventiveness and genius of those who manage to pull it off successfully. The Noise Next Door are in this improvisation elite, and their show this year really is their finest hour.
The pre-choreographed routines and song templates had the audience in stitches which is encouraging as these are some of the very few fixed features of the show which won’t change with each performance. Equally though, the excitement of improvised comedy such as this is that each performance will be different based on audience suggestions, and The Noise Next Door make the most of the bizarre suggestions thrown at them. The downside to this unpredictability is that during some of the more challenging and unusual scenes the performers have a tendency to break focus and laugh at themselves, although in one scene they go through intensive conditioning to beat this lack of control out of them! The only other negatives surrounding this show was that one or two sketches/songs perhaps went on a bit too long; and a couple of minor technical errors distracted from the astonishing talent being presented on stage.
The five boys of The Noise Next Door are attractive, talented, quick-witted and quick-thinking, and I don’t doubt that they have an extremely promising future both here at the Fringe and out on the wider circuit.
Review by Angus Wyatt. SG Fringe
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2011 Show Promo Continued
“IT IS EXTREMELY UNLIKELY YOU WILL SEE FUNNIER OR A MORE PURELY ENJOYABLE SHOW THAN THE NOISE NEXT DOOR…THE SHEER VOLUME OF LAUGHTER THIS SHOW PRODUCED WAS ASTONISHING”
**** Edinburgh Evening News
The Noise Next Door are Charlie Granville, Matt Grant, Tom Houghton, Tom Livingstone and Sam Pacelli. Since 2005, when they first started performing together, they have been astonishing audiences with their own distinctive brand of improvised comedy. With no rehearsal or script between them they have an uncanny knack of transforming audience suggestions into surreally entertaining scenes and songs in the blink of an eye. Their perfect blend of ludicrous characters, witty one-liners, epic stories and musical mayhem have left audiences everywhere in awe of their lightening fast imaginations and totally original comedic talents.
“IT’S VERY RARE TO SEE IMPROV COMEDY SO CONSISTENTLY HIT THE MARK”
**** The List
Since they first began performing together they have drawn a loyal fanbase and regularly headline to sell-out audiences at many of the top clubs on the UK Comedy Circuit. They have also supported some of the biggest names in contemporary comedy including Harry Hill, Ed Bryne and Lucy Porter and are the first international group to have performed at FRACAS improvisation festival in Los Angeles.
www.comicvoice.com
www.thenoisenextdoor.co.uk
For further information and images please contact:
Andrew Dingley on 0845 459 56 56 ext.227 or by email at andrew@hahaheehee.com
Comic Voice Management is part of The Comedy Club Ltd Group of Companies.
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