Theatre review: Blithe Spirit

The latest West End outing for Blithe Spirit is a show I was perhaps looking forward to more when it became one of my first casualties of lockdown, than I was by the time Richard Eyre's Bath production finally made it back to London. In large part this is probably because in the interim I listened to an audio version that ended up being my favourite out of any version I'd actually seen on stage, and likely hard to beat. Now at the Pinter Theatre, a decent-sized but far from packed audience suggests that despite being perhaps the best-loved Noël Coward play, there's still maybe not the appetite for quite how frequently it ectoplasmically manifests itself. Still, it's always someone's first time, and Vanessa was unfamiliar with the play about Charles Condomine (Geoffrey Streatfeild,) a writer who tries to research fraudulent psychics for his new book, by inviting a local eccentric to hold a séance.

The "fraud" turns out to be nothing of the sort when Charles ends up haunted by the ghost of his first wife Elvira (Madeleine Mantock,) whom only he can see and hear. It's particularly awkward because his second wife Ruth (Lisa Dillon) is still very much alive.

Jennifer Saunders is the production's star name, taking on the popular role of Madame Arcati, the medium who ends up seeming the most down-to-earth character on stage - particularly earthy here as Saunders' Madame is most notable for being very sweaty and quite gassy. If I was worried about being bored by revisiting the play so soon that turns out not to be a problem: Although many of the play's attitudes have dated horribly (seriously though, am I the only one bothered by Coward's recurring "wife-beating is LOLerskates" theme?) the snappy lines and farcical situations still work. Much of it put a smile on my face, and for a lot of the audience there were plenty of big laughs.

Which isn't to say there's anything particularly notable about the production itself - Anthony Ward's cluttered set tells us from the start we're playing things by the book, and Elvira's floaty, ghostly négligée seems to be exactly the same in every production ever staged (surely if Coward's going to continue to be staged so often in this country, he's overdue some kind of reinvention, if only a visual one?) Having set up a strong comic premise and some good setpieces, the second act feels like it's fumbling around for a decent ending, and it was certainly the case here that the show outstayed its welcome (is one of the reasons I liked that radio version that it was edited down to 90 minutes? Absolutely.) Eyre's production hits the right comic beats and is entertaining enough, but it doesn't convince that the West End was crying out for a third revival of the play in just over a decade.

Blithe Spirit by Noël Coward is booking until the 6th of November at the Harold Pinter Theatre.

Running time: 2 hours 30 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Nobby Clark.