Blithe Spirit Tickets

Alison Steadman, working under the direction of Thea Sharrock, returns to the West End stage in 2011 with a new production of Noel Coward’s “Blithe Spirit”, a play that caused quite an impression in 1941 and is set to repeat its success once again. The show is a production of the Theatre Royal Bath and will appear at that venue in November 2010 ahead of its West End opening at the Apollo Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue in 2011.

Sharrock returns to the Theatre Royal Bath following her stint as director of “Private Lives” for the venue in 2005, another show that spawned from the mind of Coward and also received a West End run earlier in the year with Kim Cattrall and Matthew McFadyen in lead roles (though this was a separate production). Sharrock has helmed many high profile shows over the years and 2010 has already seen her take on productions such as “The Misanthrope” at the Comedy Theatre (with Keira Knightley and Damian Lewis) and “After the Dance” at the National Theatre.

But with “Blithe Spirit” she will be helping to tell a comic tale that sees Laurence Olivier Award-winning performer Alison Steadman portray the eccentric medium Madame Arcati. Steadman has also been seen regularly, notably in productions from Mike Leigh and Alan Bennett, but also in “The Rise and Fall of Little Voice” in 1993 – for which she won her award – and “Entertaining Mr Sloane” in 2001.

Her character of Madame Arcati has been hired by the writer Charles Condomine in Coward’s play, with the novelist hoping that her preposterous skills will provide plenty of entertainment for his dinner guests and give him inspiration for his upcoming work. But his plan does not go according to plan and rather than a harmless evening of light entertainment, Arcati brings back a ghost from his past – quite literally. Happily married to his second wife Ruth, Condomine is startled to come face to face with the ghost of his ex-wife Elvira, who wishes to tear his new marriage apart.

The show was penned by Coward in the 1940s and first appeared at the Manchester Opera House in 1941, ahead of an opening at the Piccadilly Theatre the same year. It would be a huge success, appear regularly at locations all over the world for the rest of the century, before finally arriving once again in 2010/2011.

Blithe Spirit is at the Apollo Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue, with a start date of Wednesday 9th March 2011 (previews from Wednesday 2nd March 2011) and an end date of Saturday 18th June 2011.