Noises Off

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of substance use.

Lloyd is the director of Nothing On. His character is a satirical caricature of the poor director: egocentric, vain, sexually and socially untrustworthy, lazy, and untalented. He struggles to keep the actors on track during their rehearsal and has to ask the actors to stop when mistakes are made, showing his exasperation. He is regularly insulting to the rest of the company. 

Frayn lampoons Lloyd’s self-importance through self-conscious references to the director as godlike. After asking the cast to stop the rehearsal several times to no avail, Lloyd says, “And God said, Hold it. And they held it. And God saw that it was terrible” (24). The actors finally respond to this and stop rehearsing. The idea of Lloyd as a deity is first presented at the beginning of Act I, when he is simply a “disembodied voice” speaking from the audience (13). He continues the God bit for several pages and ends it when he comes on stage with the actors and can be seen by the audience of Noises Off.

Much of the backstage drama is because Lloyd is secretly dating multiple women at the same time.