Theatre review: Hay Fever

Noël Coward's Hay Fever returns to the West End, this time in a production by Emily Burns whose star turn of Christine Baranski convinced me to book; but while I can't accuse it of not being an entertaining evening, I think this should probably be the last time I give this particular play a go. Baranski plays Judith Bliss, a recently-retired stage actress who made her name in torrid melodramas, and keeps threatening to return to them as her new life in the country has been boring her lately. So much so that she's invited a devoted young fan of hers, Sandy Tyrrell (Ash Hunter) to stay with her for the weekend. She hasn't forewarned her family though, and as it turns out all four of them have got surprise guests on the way - and all four of them have gone for a vague acquaintance some decades older or younger than them whom they plan on flirting with.

So her daughter Sorel (Ophelia Lovibond) has invited the socially awkward diplomat Richard Greatham (Charles Edwards) and her son Simon (Will Close) has set his sights on Judith's frenemy Myra Arundel (Nancy Carroll.)

Meanwhile her novelist husband David (Richard E. Grant) is expecting mousy flapper girl Jackie Coryton (Lucy Karczewski,) although in his case the official line is that she's there to provide inspiration for one of his characters. Once the quartet of guests have arrived, they soon find themselves trapped by a storm in a house with a family of narcissistic eccentrics whose games aren't restricted to their unnecessarily complicated variations on charades.

The first act introduces the characters, the second sees everyone swap around their various guests until they find someone more age-appropriate to declare themselves in love with, and the third sees the fallout the next morning. And when Coward's famously bitchy lines are in full flow they're very funny, and the cast deliver them well (although there's no reason Baranski couldn't have stuck to her own accent. At least her character means I could make it my headcanon that she was Moira Roseing it.)

But if individual parts are great, the whole really doesn't have any greater depth than just "privileged people can be really weird," and when something's got so little to say the jokes really have to come a lot thicker and faster than they do here. Although I've always been a bit dubious about Coward I don't know that I would add him to the list of playwrights I completely avoid; but maybe this particular play of his has said all it can to me.

Hay Fever by Noël Coward is booking until the 12th of December at Wyndham's Theatre.

Running time: 2 hours 5 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Marc Brenner.