Blithe spirit

Blithe Spirit is a comedy with the plot of a horror story. Charles, a middle-aged novelist, lives happily with his second wife, Ruth, but he accidentally conjures up the spirit of his first wife, Elvira, during a séance. He becomes the target of a ghostly murder plot. Elvira decides to bump Charles off and enjoy his company in the afterlife. The play was one of Noël Coward’s biggest hits and although the script is 80 years old, this production features intriguing new material. The spiritualist, Madame Arcati, suffers from wind. She refers to her dietary anxieties several times and she mentions her dislike of red meat and roast pigeon. Jennifer

The comedy Blithe Spirit was written by Noël Coward in 1941. It is, essentially, about a séance going wrong and a deceased first wife coming back to haunt her husband and his second wife, causing mayhem. Better if she’d been left to rest in peace, and, after seeing this film adaption, you may well wish the play had been left to rest in peace too. Don’t dig it up! Leave well alone! I would even add that if Dame Judi Dench can’t save an adaptation — and I was previously of the mind that Judi Dench could save anything — then you know you are in real, real trouble. The