By Dan O’Farrell.
Confession time: before this ‘spirited’ evening, my only real knowledge of Noël Coward was through his reputation. I had heard countless anecdotes showcasing his wit and repartee, and read many entertaining paragraphs about him in other peoples’ biographies; his name is always prominent in discussions of British music and theatre of the Roaring Twenties through to the Post-War era but – until tonight – I’d never actually sat down and watched one of his plays.
This – it transpires – was foolish ignorance on my part: ‘Blithe Spirit’ at Salisbury Playhouse is a pure delight from start to finish.
Written during a frenzied week of creativity during the height of the Blitz in May 1941, and first produced only a month later, ‘Blithe Spirit’ is a wonderfully farcical piece that must have had the same joyfully escapist effect on the anxious spirits of war-torn theatre-goers then as it did tonight on the jangled-nerves of a modern audience.
The play centres around the playful attempt of a supremely confident novelist – Charles Condomine – to undertake background research for his next book by organising a séance in his well-appointed drawing room. The local medium – the wonderfully dotty Madame Arcati – is invited to conduct the spiritualist meeting in the company of Charles, his second-wife Ruth, and the local doctor and his wife.
All goes to plan – the smug sophisticates laughing behind their hands at Arcati’s seemingly ridiculous ways – until an unexpected visitor arrives: Elvira, Charle’s first wife, dead for seven years and keen to make his reacquaintance. The fact that she is only audible and visible to Charles – and not the long-suffering Ruth – gives the first act many laugh-out-loud moments, and the pay-offs in Act Two are unpredictable and pleasingly shocking.
The cast have great fun with such sparky material. Adam Jackson-Smith plays Charles with the increasingly desperate air of Basil Fawlty trying to convince Sybil that something fishy is definitely going on: a man unable – and possibly unwilling – to cope with the sudden battling intentions of two women he arrogantly assumed were eager to do his bidding. Bridgette Amofah gives the conjured manifestation of Elvira a purringly arch playfulness, providing a coquettish contrast to Jenny Rainsford’s plain-speaking Ruth, a strong woman driven the full emotional range from detached amusement to eye-popping fury as the supernatural plot unfolds.
Susan Wooldridge’s turn as Madame Arcati is similarly pitch-perfect: the wide-eyed delight of the true believer who has unleashed more than she thought possible complementing the wildly eccentric trance-inducing movements as she ‘limbers up’ for the séance scene. Special mention, too, for Gabriella Foley’s performance as Edith, the newly-recruited house-maid, which adds physical slapstick to the witty verbal jousting of Coward’s zinging dialogue.
As always at Salisbury Playhouse, the production values are sky-high and Terry Parson’s set for ‘Blithe Spriit’ is a beautiful, art-nouveau drawing-room which constantly teases the eye with period detail, then reveals hidden mechanical depths at key moments.
I heartily recommend this production for anyone who needs a bit of cheering up. The two-hour-plus stage-time flies by in a fast-paced tornado of Wildean one-liners and memorable retorts, and the ghostly conceits still feel fresh, surprising and darkly funny some 84 years after writing. A lovely evening all round.
Playing at Salisbury Playhouse until Saturday 25th October.
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