Anybody that grew up with a mother obsessed with Murder She Wrote will have at least a little fondness for Angela Lansbury, and the good news for any theatre goers with a similar milieu is that she’s about to star in Noël Coward’s spooked-up Blithe Spirit at the Gielgud Theatre later this year. It reprises the show from its critically acclaimed 2009 Broadway production, for which Dame Angela Lansbury won a fair few awards, including a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play, so it should be another great performance for its West End run.
The play is set to open on Saturday the 1st March 2014 at the Gielgud Theatre with ticket prices ranging from as little as £12.50 for the less expensive seats to £61.25 for places around the front row centre vicinity. It’s scheduled for a closing night on Saturday the 7th June 2014. Performance times are 7:30pm for evening performances between Mondays and Saturdays, and 2:30pm for the matinee performance on Wednesday and Saturday.
Noël Coward’s Blithe Spirit is a comedy theatre classic and it’s first production was in London’s West End in 1941 right in the midst of World War II, where it was a huge success, inspiring a long run, Broadway transfer and Hollywood movie. It’s gone on to be an enduring play that has seen a hell of a lot of revivals in both the West End and Broadway, but it hasn’t been seen in London in a few years, so the 2014 production at the Giegud will be a good opportunity to see a great performance of the well-loved play.
It tells the story of novelist, Charles Condamine, who tries to research the afterlife by inviting a sketchy medium called Madame Arcati to his home to perform a seance. When his plan to contact the spirit world turns out to be a success and his long dead first wife Elvira returns from the grave as a ghost, all hell breaks loose as she’s firmly set on getting her man back from his new wife Ruth.
Angela Lansbury will reprise her role as the spirit whispering Madame Arcati, following on from her Broadway run, with Jemima Rooper as Elvira, Charles Edwards (Holy Flying Circus, Downton Abbey Series 4) as Charles Condamine and Janie Lee as Ruth.
Blithe Spirit at the Gielgud Theatre is director Michael Blakemore’s second production of the play. However, it will also be the first time Lansbury has performed in a London theatre in just under 40 years, so there are a fair few reasons to catch it while you can, not least of all the comedy genius of Noël Coward’s work.
