BLITHE SPIRIT: WHAT I LEARNED FROM NOEL COWARD

Noel Coward was a pretty smart fella. And also a pretty talented one. Playwright, composer, singer, actor, director, raconteur, he may have been the guy for whom the term "rapier wit" was coined.

This past weekend we attended a new production of Coward's Blithe Spirit at the Princess of Wales Theatre. It is a comedy of manners involving a married couple, a deceased wife, a medium, a seance, a clumsy housekeeper and a rather impish ghost. It is damn damn funny but there were lessons to be gleaned from it. So here is what I learned from watching Blithe Spirit

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU ASK FOR: In the story, Edith and Charles are a happily married couple. Urbane, sophisticated and as dry as their martinis, they are the quintessential Noel Coward couple. Lots of silk with some lumpy gravel underneath. They have both before been married, Charles first wife, the young and vivacious Elvira, having passed away several years earlier. As the play opens, the couple is hosting an evening of entertainment and Edith pesters Charles for details about the dearly departed Elvira and their relationship. Yeh, that's a problem. The entertainment, you see, is going to be a seance

THE SEANCE OF SILLY WALKS: The medium who the couple invite to their country estate is called Madame Arcady. Not only have the guests in the story come to see Madame Arcady, but so have we. You see, in this production, Madame Arcady is played by Angela Lansbury. Yes, that Angela Lansbury. Ms Lansbury has been in the acting game a very long time. She achieved her greatest amount of fame in Murder She Wrote, playing an elderly character. The actress we saw on the stage is supposed to be 89 years old. Yeh, right. Her delivery was a sharp and perfectly timed as you could want and for all Coward being a writer of incisive language, the physical was not lost on Ms Lansbury. As Madame Arcady enters her trance to perform the seance, she is overtaken by a series of jerky, staccato movements that propelled her across the stage. At one point she hooked one leg over the other and began a series of long limbed glides. Yes, it was the seance of silly walks

THE GHOSTESS WITH THE MOSTEST DOESN'T ALWAY MAKE THE BEST HOSTESS: Let's cut to the chase. Quite against her will, Madame Arcady manages to conjure up the ghost of Elvira. At first, she can only be seen by  her husband Charles. As hilarious as Angela Lansbury was, Jemma Rooper as Elvira is a standout. She is a very bratty ghost, quite enjoying Charles discomfort and taking every opportunity to indulge in a naughty, cheeky haunting.

TWO WIVES SOUNDS GREAT UNTIL YOU REALIZE THAT ALL MORMON MEN ARE PROBABLY INSANE: Ok, this is not your normal polygamal arrangement. A wife and a ex wife, one of whom is dead. And you are the only one the dead one can see. That sounds perhaps a bit kinky until you realize that the dead one wants you dead as well, so you can be together forever. Yeh, there may be a flaw in this plan

THE AFTERLIFE MAKES STRANGE BEDFELLOWS: The wife and the ex wife together .. but both now dead. Yeh, two ghosts. Oops. They can now see each other and they both see you and Charles, you gots some splaining to do. This isn't till death do you part, this is we're dead, live with it .. or not. It gets confusing. But pretty hilarious

IT WAS THE MAID, IN THE PARLOUR, WITH AN ECTOPLASM: In this very strong cast there was one more standout, Charollette Parry as Ruth, the maid. At first we were completely entranced by her fine sense of physical comedy. A tiny woman of limited words who moved way too fast, when reminded to slow down, she affects a kind of slow mo Frankenstein shuffle. But there is more to Ruth than hilarious slapstick. Trust me, it's always the servants

And the final lesson gleaned from Blithe Spirit:

Whenever Angela Lansbury walks on to the stage, you damn well better applaud