UK - Alex Jones' very good and terribly distressing Noise is one of the most upsetting plays I have ever seen. Alex Jones, like so many of our young playwrights is concerned with dramatising the hopelessness of the have-nots in today's Britain, and he does so with a force that is like being socked on the jaw. The play is very well written and no one could accuse Jones of glamorising violence. He certainly writes with fury, passion and compassion about those whose voices are seldom heard. Sarah Hemming, Financial Times
The nightmare that all urban dwellers fear - Plays don't come more upsetting than this one, and even I who have supp'd full of theatrical horrors, found myself trembling uncontrollably. It might therefore seem perverse to recommend the piece. Yet the author, Alex Jones, is clearly a powerful new voice in the theatre, and his shattering play explores lives of noisy desperation, the kind of lives we, and many politicians prefer to forget. Jones reveals compassion for his helpless characters, unable to cope, too scared to go to the police. Noise isn't gratuitously terrifying. It is terrifyingly persuasive. Charles Spencer, The Daily Telegraph
Alex Jones' bleak new play could hardly be more timely - a paradigm of what has happened to British youth over the past two decades and how the loss of hope or any sense of belonging has led to a similar murderous loss of humanity... anyone who has suffered a similar fate at the hands of a neighbour's over-amped enthusiasm - and five tenths of last night's interval audience could be heard recounting their own particular experiences - will recognise the scenario. Jones has taken what is now a recognised social problem and turned it into a sad, pessimistic lament for today's generation. Jones' bitter-sweet, homely, but horrific warning makes clear, these Black Country lambs (Becky and Dan) are straight out of the Romeo and Juliet/West Side Story mould - innocents destroyed by a chaotic malignancy they are powerless to control. Carol Woddis, The Glasgow Herald
A production which gets deeply under your skin - Jones is not a flashy writer, but one who understands the banally expressive form and content of everyday speech. Time Out - Critics Choice
Cruel but honest, Alex Jones's distressing but powerful Noise is premiered by the Soho Theatre: Back in 1967 the thugs who stoned a baby to death in Edward Bond's ‘Saved ‘did not get off scot-free. The violence in Noise is a bit less and extreme than in 'Saved', and its prime victim two months from being born; but if you asked me which urban jungle I would rather inhabit, I would take Bond's South London over Jones' Black Country. Benedict Nightingale, The Times
Alex Jones' Noise taps with great effectiveness into the primitive fear that we are just a thin wall away from violence and chaos. As the play moves towards the climax whose menacing violence had one woman in the first-night audience sprinting to the exit, Jones paints an alarming picture of a society oppressed by fear and injustice, where people are left to go mad in boxes with only a sound system to obliterate the space between the walls and where these sick individuals can so terrorise communities that people are too frightened to got to the police. Many beautifully constructed scenes, but for me the most harrowing was the final one with the drained couple packing up to leave, having lost their baby and perhaps their raison d'être. Will their love survive a parting while she goes to rest at her parents and he looks for somewhere else? Outside, leaving them on edge through noise to the last, the impatient pipping on his car horn of the father come to reclaim his little girl. Paul Taylor The Independent
There is a sickening intensity to Noise, Alex Jones's debut play for Soho Theatre Company. His dark tale of a hopeful young couple being mentally and physically tortured and physically attacked left me with a shaky feeling in the pit of my stomach. It is a menacingly powerful piece of work. Top marks for Soho TC for being brave enough to stage it. Adrian Dawson, The Stage
AMERICA - It's anything but noise, this remarkably delicate work about a naive teenage couple facing the cruel world. English playwright, Alex Jones offers a deceptively simple tale, finely wrought with quintessential, but not clichéd characters essaying a fairy-tale life in the dark forests of modern living...The story has only one possible ending, but the reasons are manifold and Jones lets us see each one, subtly but clearly. Not a single moment rings false. All honesty occupies the space, putting tiny touches on moments that only a vivid imagination could create. This Noise is golden. Dany Margolies Back Stage West - Critics Pick
Alex Jones' slashing drama of the perils of economic depression frequently suggests a latter-day ‘Look Back In Anger’…the grimy comic atmosphere soon darkens as blaring techno music from next door awakens the couple on their first night out and continually thereafter...Jones impressive architecture occasionally tips the sociological hat, and the intermission is questionable, given the accelerating tension. But these are quibbles, though, as the nail-biting intensity of the disturbing climax demonstrates the acute impact this haunting work deserves. David C Nichols, Los Angeles Times - Critics Choice
Playwright, Alex Jones draws his characters well; his play is a brutal indictment of contemporary British society and the ineffectiveness of the law, the establishment, or the system to give needed aid and comfort to those who fall outside the tightly sealed box. Madeleine Shaner, Beverly Press
In its US premiere, this shattering new work looks at the thin boundaries between us all. David Elzer, Theatre Scope - Critics Pick
In its US premiere, Alex Jones' 1997 drama about two Black Country teenage newlyweds and their antagonistic neighbour proves haunting and disturbing with nail-biting levels of intensity and poignance. Los Angeles Times 'Theater Beat' - Critics Choice
Alex Jones' "Noise" getting its US premiere by the Furious Theatre Company is an intimate drama exploring the fine social lines in modern life, exposing just how thin our boundaries truly are. Exceptional performances all round serve Jones' intelligent and illuminating script well. Jennie Webb, KcRw Theatre Talk - Recommended
Noise breaks your heart with dark simplicity. Alex Jones' one-room Noise is extraordinarily violent and desperately depressing. It also has a pair of young and forlorn central characters so empathetic, so lost, so loving, so hopelessly infused with the optimism of youth, you find yourself wanting to scoop them up and get them a gentler place to live. This is the kind of play that bothers you after the curtain goes down. And the next morning, it bothers you all the more. It's a bit like meditating on something by Harold Pinter, except that in this piece 'The Dumb Waiter' comes through the door and kicks the characters in their guts. Yet the oomph of Noise lies in its stylistic simplicity. Jones, a well-regarded young scribe from Birmingham, England, details his fledgling couple's hapless attempts at cohabitation with closely detailed affection. We've all felt helpless when confronted by something we did not deserve but that brings us misery. Especially when there is little or nothing we feel empowered to do. Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune - Critics Pick
This deceptively simple work shocks us into realizing that economic depression sure has a cost in killing the human spirit. Noise dramatically jolts Dan and Becky's world and reminds us that a modern society must not leave anyone behind. Alex Jones' play will shake you and remind you to be careful when you challenge a neighbour's noise. Tom Williams, ChicagoCritic.com - Critics Pick
SOUTH AFRICA - 'Noise' is relevant and uncomfortable Jennifer de Klerk ‘Artslink Co Za’
