Blithe Spirit

A comedy by Noel Coward
November 1969
The Little Theatre, Old Royal Marines Camp, Butts Close, Faringdon
Directed by Evelyn Stoodley

The smash comedy hit of the London and Broadway stages, this much-revived classic from the playwright of Private Lives offers up fussy, cantankerous novelist Charles Condomine, re-married but haunted (literally) by the ghost of his late first wife, the clever and insistent Elvira who is called up by a visiting “happy medium,” one Madame Arcati. As the personalities clash, Charles’ current wife, Ruth, is accidentally killed, “passes over,” joins Elvira, and the two “blithe spirits” haunt the hapless Charles into perpetuity.

The action of the play passes in the living room of Charles Condomine’s house in Kent.