My play's a big noise at Old Vic but I thought no one would stage it

But Noises Off author Michael Frayn today confessed that he never thought his farce about a shambolic theatre company would make the stage.

The 78-year-old playwright and novelist said he was "very pleased", if surprised, that the show's recent success will see it transferred to the West End 30 years after its first production at the Lyric in Hammersmith.

The play-within-a-play follows the backstage and onstage antics of a theatre company staging a silly sex farce called Nothing On.

But Frayn feared actors would dislike performing the scenes in which the characters face the back of the stage and mime, as they perform the comedy to their "audience". He said it took complex re-writes on a typewriter and advice from the original director Michael Blakemore to get it finished.

"I thought there wasn't the faintest chance anyone is going to do this," he said. "But it's now been played in every country in the world where they do plays."

He added: "I think [director] Lindsay [Posner] has done a terrific production and I'm delighted it seems to have hit the spot."

Celia Imrie, who appears alongside Robert Glenister and Janie Dee, said she hoped audiences at the Novello Theatre in Aldwych would be as "fabulous" as those at the Old Vic which have included famous comedy names Ricky Gervais and Patricia Routledge, who was in the original 1982 production.

Imrie added: "When the theatre is full with people screaming with laughter, it's like an injection of joy. People are fed up and they want to be taken out of themselves for a while." Although several Old Vic productions under Spacey have toured the world, this is the first show to cross the river to the West End.

Spacey said: "I couldn't be more thrilled with the reaction of audiences to Noises Off. It's wonderful for the Old Vic to be transferring this production into the West End, giving many more people the chance to see Michael Frayn's brilliant play and the fantastic company of actors that have brought it to life. It has always been our ambition to see our productions travel to other theatres so this is great news for the Old Vic."

Noises Off finishes at the Old Vic on March 10 and moves to the Novello Theatre from March 24 to June 30.