Alarms and Excursions: More Plays than One

What happens when one by one the labour saving devices in your modern home seem to turn against you? Or you’re stuck at the airport waiting for a lift and you keep getting the answer phone? What happens when a disgruntled air stewardess has to give the same speech over the intercom yet again?

Written by Michael Frayn, author of the brilliant play “Noises Off”, this series of plays examines with hilarious consequences what happens when the modern world goes wrong. Here are six comedies of embarrassment on the theme of how modern technology, with its gadgets and gizmos, buzzers and beepers, is meant to make life easier, but actually just provides new forms of torment. The Guardian called it “The funniest play of the year”; whilst The Sunday Times raved “This is simply breathtakingly, comfortingly and appallingly funny.”