Greenwich Theatre Announces 2022 Comedic Revival of ALARMS AND EXCURSIONS

This Spring, the team at Greenwich Theatre announce their next in house production Alarms and Excursions, a collection of short plays by Michael Frayn which takes a hilarious look at society's tortuous relationship with modern technology. The production will explore how comically baffling new fangled machinery can be in its dealings with us, exposing the double-edged relationship we maintain with tools that aim to stimulate progress - but more often than not leave us feeling more baffled than when we began. Alarms and Excursions runs from February 11th - March 26th 2022 at Greenwich Theatre, for which tickets are now on sale.

Four old friends sit down for a quiet evening together. But they are harassed by various bells, sirens, buzzers, warbles, beepers and cheepers, all trying to warn them of something. What are these electronic voices so urgently trying to tell them? Can they understand the mysterious messages before disaster strikes? It's a race against time - because there are seven more plays and twenty more characters still to come before the evening is through, plus a lot more strange noises - and increasingly desperate calls from eleven separate pay-phones...

Director James Haddrell divulges further "our blind reliance on technology, the evolution of relationships over time, our understanding of time and space in our lives - this collection of short plays is so rich with ideas that while I think audiences will certainly laugh they'll also recognise so much about themselves and others, and will doubtless leave the theatre with at least a glimpse of a new version of the world". Haddrell adds that, of course "we all deserve a laugh right now, after the two years that we've had to deal with, but Michael Frayn's comedies are never just that - there is always something else sitting underneath and Alarms and Excursions is no exception".

Audiences can expect an evening of knowing laughter provoked by the relatability of Michael Frayn's words. As noted by The Guardian, the esteemed playwright "has the rare ability to construct farcical comedy around philosophical principles and the laughs and the ideas effortlessly intermesh". Michael Frayn is not only an award winning playwright, but a novelist and translator whose astonishing body of work includes the novels The Tin Men (Somerset Maugham Award), Headlong (shortlisted for the Booker Prize) and Spies (winner of the Whitbread Book of the Year), and the plays Noises Off, Benefactors and Copenhagen (winner of both an Evening Standard award and a Tony Award). Following an acclaimed revival of Frayn's HERE at Greenwich Theatre in 2018, which "Frayn... told the cast was the best version of [the play] he had ever seen" according to The Greenwich Visitor, the Greenwich Theatre team reunites with this incomparable writer for an unforgettable evening of comedy and thought provoking ideas. With lighting design by Mark Dymock, set and costume design by Lauren Connolly and sound design by Matthew Giles the production promises to have you talking about it for weeks after.

Haddrell, who will direct the production, shares that "Michael has described the collection as a theatrical tapas evening, and I think audiences will love that. Some larger plates, some smaller tasting plates, and an unexpected dessert at the end - the kind of evening where you always find something you love, and something to talk about!" A production which promises to simultaneously provide both light hearted comic relief and the catharsis of human relatability.

Box Office 020 8858 7755 | www.greenwichtheatre.org.uk

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