We guarantee that everyone who comes to the show will burst out laughing at least 50 times and, if not, we will refund the ticket," says Li Shengying, producer of the upcoming British farce, "Noises Off."

Written by British playwright Michael Frayn in 1982, the award-winning play--the London Evening Standard Prize and the Olivier Award for Best Comedy--has been performed by many theater companies around the world and has always been a smash hit whenever and wherever it is staged.

The story follows the antics of a second-rate acting troupe as they stumble from dress rehearsal to the disastrous last night performance of their farce, Nothing On.

Although Nothing On must be about something, it's difficult to figure out what it is exactly. In the performance there seem to be countless doors opening and slamming shut, sexual dalliances, love triangles, multiple confusions, hidden bottles of whisky and even plates of sardines--both on and off the stage.

Over the play's three acts, audiences get to see Nothing On three times but each show is never done in exactly the same way.

Everything that can go wrong does as the actors try desperately to hang onto their lines, their performances and even the scene furniture. And when they bring their real-life disputes and battles onto the stage, this results in terrifying and hilarious chaos.

In 1986, the rollicking production was translated into Chinese and introduced by veteran Hong Kong director Chung King-fai to Chinese audiences. Although it has been successfully staged in Hong Kong and Macao six times, the Shanghai shows are the first time the witty farce will be seen on the Chinese mainland and it will also be performed in Mandarin (with English subtitles).

"It is the seventh time I have directed the show but I still want to make something new out of it," says Chung, who was invited by the Shanghai Drama Arts Center to work with local performers for this production. "The Shanghai cast does a good job and our main purpose is to make the audience laugh."

It was reported that in Hong Kong, the play had audiences laughing at least 500 times on average a night and, at one show, 648 times.

The London Daily Telegraph once praised the play by putting out a "health warning" saying that "seeing it may seriously damage your ability to draw breath." This actually came true one night in 1987 when a member of the audience in Hong Kong had to be taken to hospital after being choked by laughter.

Chung says some Shanghai dialect has been added to the script to make the play more understandable to locals.

For people who may have an unclear idea of what a farce is, it is a form of comedy which aims to entertain by way of unlikely and extravagant, yet plausible, situations, deliberate absurdity or nonsense, mistaken identity as well as broad verbal and physical humor.

As opposed to romantic comedies, farces usually do not contain a plot in the traditional sense involving frustrated young lovers who eventually surmount all obstacles in their way. Rather, they frequently focus on other things such as a character's urge to hide something from others and the unforeseen chain reaction of events that follows.

There is usually only one set used throughout a farce, often a place with many doors. This is true of the set for the Shanghai performances which has a total of 16 doors on two storeys.

It is the second of Frayn's plays to zap into Shanghai after his well-known Copenhagen which was presented by the China National Drama Theater in 2003.

Performance Details:

With English subtitles

Dates: January 8-February 6 (closed on Mondays and Tuesdays), 7:15pm

Venue: Shanghai Drama Arts Theater, 288 Anfu Rd

Tickets: 100-200 yuan

Booking: 6473-0123, 6473-4567

(Shanghai Daily January 7, 2005)