noises off

English edit

noises off pl (plural only)

(theater) Sound effects produced offstage.
- 1934, Alfred Kenneth Boyd, The Technique of Play Production:
  A separate section is given to this subject because as a rule the importance of noises off is badly underestimated in the amateur theatre.
(by extension) Something occurring on the margins or periphery of a given event, situation etc.
- 2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin, published 2003, page 515:
  The political situation after the Year V elections developed into a war of position between rival factions, with muffled insurrectionary noises off supplied by bellicose neo-Jacobins and sabre-rattling royalists.
- 2023 June 30, Marina Hyde, “The tide is coming in fast on Rishi Sunak – and it’s full of sewage”, in The Guardian‎^[1]:
  Amazing, given the gravity of those, that noises-off to the main event continue to be bleatings by the likes of Jacob Rees-Mogg and Nadine Dorries […] who have now put five times more effort into greasing up to Boris Johnson than they ever did into public service.