Full casting announced for Blithe Spirit

Jemima Rooper, Sandra Dickinson, Simon Jones and Patsy Ferran join Janie Dee, Charles Edwards and Angela Lansbury in Blithe Spirit, directed by Michael Blakemore. This new production of Noël Coward’s sharp comedy of social mores opens at the Gielgud Theatre on 18th March 2014 (previews from 1st March).

In order to observe a spiritualist first-hand for a planned novel, writer Charles Condomine (Charles Edwards) and wife Ruth (Janie Dee) invite friends the Bradmans (Simon Jones and Sandra Dickinson) to dinner and a séance with local clairvoyant Madame Arcati (Angela Lansbury), whom they are certain is a fake. 

That all changes when the ghost of his first wife, Elvira (Jemima Rooper) is summoned - and overstays her welcome in the following days, causing a rift between Charles and his at first disbelieving and then jealous second wife. The feuding wives, ghost and flesh, hatch plot and counter plot to sabotage each other’s and Charles’ existence – but will they succeed?

Angela Lansbury’s Broadway performance as Coward’s infamous clairvoyant earned her the 2009 Tony Award for Best Supporting Actress and became her fifth Tony Award. Her professional career spans more than a half-century, during which she has flourished, first as a star of motion pictures, then as a Broadway musical star and most recently as the star of Murder, She Wrote. Lansbury was last seen on the London stage playing Gertrude in the National Theatre’s production of Hamlet in 1975. Prior to that, she starred in the celebrated production of Gypsy at the Piccadilly Theatre and in the RSC production of All Over at The Aldwych. In November this year Lansbury received an honorary Oscar in recognition of her outstanding 70 years of contribution to the film industry.

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