Michael Frayn’s (Donkeys’ Years, Noises Off) Alarms & Excursions is a set of eight plays including 24 characters, one dinner party and an unusual flight announcement.

Four friends sit down for a quiet evening together which is ruined by bells, buzzers and a high tech corkscrew; a politician is lost for words when the autocue goes off script; an inflight announcement ends with more than a seatbelt coming undone.

Frayn’s tales of technological terror examine what happens when the modern world goes wrong and proves that new technology designed to make our lives easier often just provides new forms of torment.