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REVIEW

Southend Drama Society present

Blithe Spirit
​

Dixon Studio, Palace Theatre, Westcliff on Sea
Wed 17 - Sat 20 May 2023
A well-known actress once said to me, after a performance she had just appeared in:  “Never underestimate how difficult it is to do Noel Coward! You have to work very hard to  make that dialogue sound natural!”  

Southend Drama Society have taken on this challenge, and have chosen Coward’s 1941  wartime smash hit play Blithe Spirit as their Spring Production currently playing until  Saturday night in the Dixon Studio at the Palace Theatre. 

Noel Coward wrote most of his plays between 80 and 100 years ago. It is quite astonishing  that his work is still so popular today, but they are also very much of their time. Society was  very different then. The class system very much prevailed, with the so-called ‘middle’ and  ‘upper’ classes dominating the plays that were written. This is strongly reflected in Coward’s  dialogue. The characters are extremely verbose, and have a great deal of lines to say. They  also speak very quickly, with cut-glass, refined accents, which those in the ‘working class’  sector of society tended to copy, to show how aspirational and ‘refined’ they were. 

Any drama group tackling a Noel Coward play has its work cut out, and Southend Drama  Society certainly has thrown itself into the task with great energy and enthusiasm. The results are somewhat mixed, with some of the cast capturing the 1920’s period-feel more  successfully than others. 

Blithe Spirit is set in the house of Charles and Ruth Condomine. They have invited their  friends, Doctor and Mrs Bradman round for the evening to take part in a seance, which is to  be conducted by local celebrity Medium, Madame Arcarti. Unfortunately, much to her own  surprise and delight, Madame Arcarti manages to conjure the ghost of Condomine’s late first  wife, Elvira. Chaos then ensues as a result, which is all great fun to watch. 

The role of Madame Arcarti is most definitely the star part, despite having fewer actual  scenes than some of the others.  She has been played by many very famous names in the  past, from Penelope Keith, Alison Steadman, Judi Dench (in the recent 2020 film) to Angela  Lansbury. For Southend Drama Society, Zena Butt carries all before her in an absolutely fearless performance.  Dressed in her flowing robes, turban, and pixie-like shoes, looking very much like Aladdin’s Genie of the lamp, she cavorts, spins, dances, and eye-rolls to hilarious effect. This Madame  Arcarti clearly has total belief in herself and is not to be crossed. So therefore it is a great  shame that, in order to shorten the running (and I imagine, learning time) for the hard working actors, one of her scenes is cut, leaving a bit of narrative confusion as a result. Zena  Butt is terrific and deserves all her lines! 

The other stand-out performance comes from Claire Rattenbury as Elvira. This is another  great opportunity for an actor with good comic timing, and a line in understated, deadpan  delivery. Claire has these qualities in a nutshell, has a great time being a very naughty ghost,  and looks the part too in her long grey dress, bobbed black wig and white face. She also has  natural chemistry with Adam Lee Crookes, as her former husband Charles. 

It is the actors playing Charles and Ruth who have the toughest task of the night. They are  barely offstage at all. Their relationship is the crux of the play. Adam Lee Crookes is certainly  dashing enough to have have two women, albeit one dead one, fighting over him, but both  he and Sophie Acton as Ruth, are a little too young for their roles and struggle to capture the  period style needed. Both actors lacked projection and could do with energising their  dialogue more.. There is a little too much modern-ness in style about them too, but I am sure  as the week goes on, their performances will develop as will their confidence. 

Bill Peel plays Doctor Bradman with a broad, ‘Doctor Finlay” Scottish accent, which I wasn't  convinced was a good decision, but Juliet Banks is a very neat foil as his wife, who is very  excited at being invited to the seance, and also has a habit of saying the wrong thing.  

Linda Finch completes the cast in the key role of The Maid, Edith, who as it turns out, knows  more than we think. Again, she could allow herself to have more fun with her character. 

Director Simon Lawler and his crew have great fun with the technical side of the show, and  plates go flying to brilliant effect in the supernatural finale. 
All in all a fine effort by Southend Drama Society, with perhaps a little more attention needed  to period style and accents needed. 

Review by Andrew Walters

'Blithe Spirit is a comic play by Noël Coward, described by the author as "an improbable farce in three acts".

The play concerns the socialite and novelist Charles Condomine, who invites the eccentric medium and clairvoyant Madame Arcati to his house to conduct a séance, hoping to gather material for his next book. The scheme backfires when he is haunted by the ghost of his wilful and temperamental first wife, Elvira, after the séance. Elvira makes continual attempts to disrupt Charles's marriage to his second wife, Ruth, who cannot see or hear the ghost.

The play was first seen in the West End in 1941 and ran for 1,997 performances, a new record for a non-musical play in London. It also did well on Broadway later that year, running for 657 performances.

Southend Drama Society will attempt to evoke the spirit of the ‘40’s and will present a costume drama, with a traditional box set. The Company has along history of performing period pieces, with a strong bias towards comedy.  They promise every nuance will be observed and therefore expect an hilarious evening’s entertainment.'

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