Wymondham Players
present
Blithe Spirit
Charles Condomine, a socialite and successful novelist, wants to research the occult for a novel he is writing, and he arranges for an eccentric medium, Madam Arcati, to hold a séance at his house. He expects it all to be nothing more than an amusing sham, and invites the local doctor and his wife along to share in the fun. However, at the séance, Madam Arcati inadvertently summons Charles's first wife, Elvira, who has been dead for seven years. Only Charles can see or hear Elvira, and his second wife, Ruth, does not believe that Elvira exists until a floating vase is handed to her out of thin air. The ghostly Elvira makes continued, and increasingly desperate efforts to disrupt Charles's current marriage, while he finds the whole thing jolly amusing.
As the play unfolds, the tension between Charles and Ruth increases, and she even threatens to call the Archbishop of Canterbury as a last resort to get rid of Elvira. The plot has more twists than a roller coaster and is a hilarious three-way repartee, but culminates in a spectacular ending.
The final member of the cast, Edith, the Condomine’s new maid, has some wonderful comic moments, and her secret is not revealed until the end of the play.
Wymondham
Players’ April Production will be Noel Coward’s wonderful astral
comedy “Blithe Spirit”
Written to raise the ‘spirits’
of the British people in the dark wartime days of 1941, Coward described
this play as “an improbable farce”. The action takes place in
the living room of the Condomine’s house in 1930’s Kent, and
the period is invoked by the setting and costumes, together with the ‘plummy’
accents and Coward’s typically witty dialogue. The play is as much
a take on love and marriage as on death and the afterlife. The title comes
from Percy Shelley’s poem ‘Ode to a Skylark’ – “Hail
to the blithe spirit, bird thou never wert ..”
* * * * * * *
Tabi Paternoster and Alan Carpenter take on the roles of the Condomines,
with Georgette Vale as mad Madam Arcati. Marianne London and Martin Drummond
play their guests - the Bradmans, and Leanne Neave is Edith, the 'high-speed'
maid. Justine Kerry on her debut in a full production with Wymondham Players
is Elvira.
The play runs from 18th – 21st April at Central Hall, Wymondham, with
curtain-up at 7.45pm.
Tickets are £7 (£6 concessions)