Hay Fever, Theatre Royal Bath, review: Stylish, well-cast and extremely entertaining
Lindsay Posner gives proceedings a huge booster jab of vividly-outlined vigour
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.With whom would you rather spend the weekend? Chez George and Martha on campus in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Or at the Cookham country retreat of the Bohemian Bliss family in Noel Coward's Hay Fever?
It's a question that has acquired added speculative force because of this summer's excellent repertory at Bath's Theatre Royal. A zinging revival of Albee's envenomed “Get the Guests” drama is now directly succeeded by Coward's well-nigh perfect comedy of bad manners inflicted by the arty on the hearty (and the guileless).
This is one of the most frequently staged of the Master's works and can sometimes feel a bit deja entendu but director Lindsay Posner gives the proceedings a huge booster jab of vividly-outlined vigour in this stylish, well-cast and extremely entertaining production.
Felicity Kendal is funnier than I have seen her in ages as Judith Bliss, the retired but far from retiring grande dame who is planning to make a return to the stage after a mere year away. Guests are, by defintion, simply the hapless bit-players in the Bliss family's round-the-clock charades – a form of collective solipsism into which outsiders venture at their peril.
The actual dinner party game of acting-in-the-manner of-the word, brilliantly performed and staged here, is paradoxically safer territory for the guests than elsewhere because at least it makes histrionic wiles official and overt.
Kendal brings a fresh hilarity to the part by giving Judith a sort of growly, pouty, no-nonsense briskness and despatch, a manner not normally associated with fey strategising. When Michael Simkins's deliciously gaffe-prone diplomat gives her a peck on the neck, Kendal's Judith goes into vertical take-off with a mad efficiency of swooning melodramatic manner as though she were planning a sports' day rather than the instant renunciation of her husband.
It helps that, in an amusing touch, the sweeping staircase to the upper landing on Peter McKintosh's droll Boho chic set is a bit too steep a schlep for entirely easeful grand entrances and flouncing exits though if you want a banister to clutch and droop against during a spontaneous reprise of one of Judith's awful old play, it's your man. Highly recommended.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments