Cast:

An O.R.P Production Directed by Sheila Carradine.

Crew:

We would like to thank Johnathans Hotel and Restaurant for their assistance in this production and Sandwell arts for a grant towards exhibition stands.

The play is set in the Condomines living room during the summer.

When Charles and Ruth Condomine decide to organise an evening of innocent dabbling into the occult, with the mysterious Madame Arcarte, they are unprepared for the deliciously disastrous results or for the return of Charles' first wife the mischievous Elvira.

The Play:

In six days during a springtime holiday in Portmenon in May 1941 Blithe Spirit was written and from the original draft only two lines were subsequently amended before it went into production the following month. After a short tour it opened in the West end in July where it ran for nearly 2000 performances (a record only broken by The Mousetrap) and on Broadway for 18 months.

During 1942 & 1943 Coward played the lead in a six month nationwide tour from Inverness to Exeter -hazardous and difficult in those cold dark wartime years. During a performance in a freezing theatre in Inverness, Coward complained to his leading ladies in the interval that he was unable to hear himself speaking owing to the chattering of his teeth - " in the second act, to our immense relief, the theatre caught fire"...

The play also marks a watershed in Cowards writing from his seeming obsession with bright young things of the social set, to more universal themes and that a flippant comedy about death endures is tribute to his writing skills. R.T.