Noel Coward
HER Productions
Hope Mill Theatre, Manchester
February 12-22, 2025: 2 hrs 45 mins
(also at Dukes Theatre, Lancaster, Feb 25-March 1)
There was a chill air in Hope Mill Theatre last night (nothing spooky – it was a cold night in Ancoats). But that was far outweighed by the warmth and brilliance of Karen Henthorn’s performance as a distinctly northern Madame Arcarti in Noel Coward’s evergreen comedy Blithe Spirit.
It’s long been a jewel of a role for an actor of a certain age, but this creation of her must be one of the best. The bicycle-riding, bossy, sandwich-munching and ever-energetic “spirit medium”, who gets more than she bargains for when she attempts to bring back writer Charles Condomine’s deceased first wife Elvira in the presence of his second, Ruth, does not have to be posh or southern. The characterisation reminds me of both my Yorkshire granny and my north-easterner aunty: both tough women who knew how to make their way through an unforgiving world and were unswerving in their convictions about life, death and everything else.
Henthorn makes a wonderful contrast with the upper-upper-middle class home into which she is invited: Coward may have found such circles congenial to inhabit and attractive to his not-so-upper-upper-middle audiences, and this production, by Hannah Ellis Ryan – her solo directorial debut – brings out the dated social structure of it all, with “Cook”, unseen in the kitchen, and maid Edith, whom we see employed in her humble station from the start, an excellent comic effort by Riah Amelle.
Peter Stone is equally amusing as Charles, teetering on the edge of Basil Fawlty funny walks just occasionally, but using his face as much as his voice to be something just a bit larger than life. Kayleigh Hawkins has a beautiful, cut-glass accent for Elvira and floats around the room as all good spirits should. Ntombizodwa Ndlovu is almost equally posh and snobby as Ruth, while Luvas Cheoing Smith and Laura Littlewood make the most they can of the necessarily foil-like couple, George and Violet. He has the enviable ability to put on cufflinks with one hand while talking simultaneously; she carries a tower of a wig with aplomb.
There are a couple of minor irritants in the design (set by Jenny Holt Wright, lighting by Katy Errington). Though the comfortable drawing room is effectively created and in-period, the window stated to reveal “daylight” in Act 2 could surely have had some illumination behind it; and what is the point of having a clapped-out reed organ present when the text talks about (and requires someone to play) a piano? Hope Mill has a perfectly good baby grand in the theatre restaurant.
The Play-That-Goes-Wrong-style collapsing props at the end are wisely kept to a minimum, though. You never know these days what’s meant to happen and what isn’t.
Fun, though, emerges at every turn - especially in that superb emanation of Madame Arcarti.
More info and tickets here
