Patience is more than a virtue. It is the key to getting the full entertainment value from Diamond Head Theatre’s current production of British playwright Michael Frayn’s play-within-a-play comedy, “Noises Off.”

Act I moves at its own slow pace and, despite some clever ideas and striking moments, may leave anyone unfamiliar with the show wondering at intermission if they should stay for more. It’s here that patience is the thing. To leave at intermission is to miss all the tightly choreographed physical comedy that comes afterward.

But to start at the beginning of Act I, the cast members of a British sex comedy titled “Nothing On” are stumbling their way through a late-night rehearsal. In “Nothing On” a sexually ambitious man named Roger Tramplemain brings a woman named Vicki to a vacant mansion that Vicki thinks he owns. When Tramplemain finds that the absentee owners’ housekeeper, Mrs. Clackett, is there on her day off, he surreptitiously tells her that he is from the property management and his companion is interested in renting the property. Mrs. Clackett takes the story at face value and the couple goes upstairs to “look at the bedroom.”

The owners of the mansion arrive shortly thereafter. Philip Brent and his wife Flavia live as “tax exiles” in Spain but have sneaked home to celebrate their wedding anniversary in their bedroom. They ask Mrs. Clackett to keep their presence a secret. She agrees, but for some reason doesn’t mention that a rental agent is showing the house to a client.

And then, while everyone is occupied elsewhere in the mansion, a thief climbs in through a window intent on burglarizing the “empty” house.

The rehearsal is interrupted early and often by the increasingly frustrated director, Lloyd Dallas (Kevin Keaveney). Working with him are his vastly overworked stage manager, Tim Allgood (Christopher Denton) and assistant stage manager, Poppy Norton-Taylor (Antoinette Lilley). The rehearsal does not go well.

Then comes intermission, when the DHT stage crew turns the entire set around.

Act II is a matinee performance of “Nothing On” as seen from backstage and with much of what is happening backstage acted out silently while we hear the actors performing “on stage.” Personal conflicts between various members of the “Nothing On” cast are evident. The amount of broad physical comedy seen by the DHT audience amps up exponentially.

The DHT stage crew turns the set around a second time for Act III and we are watching a performance of “Nothing On” that is taking place near the end of the run. Things have broken down to where props malfunction or are out of place, and members of the cast are resorting to ad libs.

DHT director Rob Duval gets strong comic performances out of a uniformly talented cast. The highlights include Mathias Maas (playing actor Garry Lejeune in character as Roger Tramplemain) doing a slow-motion fall down a long flight of stairs and Garrett Hols (playing actor Freddie Fellowes in character as Philip Brent) hopping up the stairs with his pants around his ankles.

Much later, Hols nimbly leaps over Rachele Rees (playing actor Brooke Ashton in character as Vicki) in a scene where Ashton is crawling around on her hands and knees looking for her lost contact lens. The setup allows Rees to display her skills as a physical comedienne, while Denton and Lilley elicit laughs as the almost-overwhelmed stage crew coping with crisis after crisis in Act II.

Ann Brandman (playing top-billed star Dotty Otley playing Mrs. Clackett) gives the show a solid foundation as the imperturbable cockney housekeeper. Therese Olival’s multilayered performance as Brenda Blair/Flavia Brent keeps Olival in the forefront of the action in both stories.

Keaveney is a strong presence as the sarcastic, quick-thinking and promiscuous director. Last to appear but far from the least in terms of his performance, is Saul Rollason, who becomes an increasingly important supporting player in the dual roles of veteran actor/borderline alcoholic Selsdon Mowbray and the down-on-his-luck burglar-with-a-secret.