★★★★½
We all dread our past coming back to haunt us, and yet it seems to do so frequently. Whether it be a song that throws us back to those intoxicating but devastating early years of first love, or a traumatic Tinder date showing up front row when you’re about to give a speech.
But what if the ghosts of our past turned up, made themselves comfortable on our sofa, and refused to budge?
New Theatre’s final production for 2026 is Blithe Spirit, and the seasoned, uber-talented team brings to life one of Nöel Coward’s best in the most vivid, delightful way. With Rosane McNamara’s precise, intelligent direction and Coward’s brilliant premise, the actors drop right into the centre of this wacky story like they’ve been there all along.
The play is full of hilarious physical comedy, cleverly rooted in the bizarre circumstances. There’s plenty of highly amusing set-ups to keep any hyper-cynical audience member glued and the dopamine bubbling up in anticipation.
The brilliance of Coward’s play is the premise. A hack medium, Madame Arcati (the brilliant Emily Weare), inadvertently conjures a ghost during a casual séance at the home of Charles and Ruth Condomine. It’s the late wife of Charles (Michael Booth).
Her name is Elvira (a charismatic Daisy Cousens), who returns after seven years, while he is married to his second wife, Ruth (Michela Noonan). The scenario, a man dealing with both his dead ex-wife and living second wife in real time is ripe for clever comedy.
Blithe Spirit first hit London audiences with a bang. Literally. It was written during the Blitz in World War II, while Nöel Coward’s home and office were destroyed around him, and first performed in Manchester on 16 June 1941, just a month after the bombings in London ended.
A risqué move to stage a play about the return of the dead, just after over 40,000 civilians had been killed, but Coward’s signature wit and snowball-escalated scenarios are perhaps just what the doctor ordered.
Coward’s language and phrasing, and understated humour, are also difficult to pull off. There’s a slightly sluggish start, as the actors struggle to hit the right notes that linger under the tricky, restrained phrasing.
But it’s not long before the play takes flight, particularly with the entrance of Emily Weare (who played Monica in last year’s Present Laughter) as local medium Madame Arcati, a delicious role that Weare plays to the hilt.
Arcati is part bohemian nutter, part ashram-hopping eccentric, part bicycle-pedalling headmistress. It’s a colourful, memorable character that Weare makes pop.
Perfectly at home in the Nöel Coward world, Weare seems like she was plucked from the 1940s to return to this timeline and do it all again like she’s never left the stage. A highlight is her rapid-fire speech about not being able to go into a trance after eating a pigeon pie.
Daisy Cousens is totally inhabited and deliciously animated as Elvira, the ghost of Charles’ first wife who’s clearly loving the permission to be as cheeky as hell in her ethereal afterlife space. She balances intelligent lines with an exaggerated, cartoon-like character straight out of 1940s films. Think Rita Hayworth and Veronica Lake.
Michela Noonan holds ground as Ruth, the chic, strident, but relatable second wife of Charles. Her journey is grounded and riveting, pulling in the audience as she moves through a myriad of emotions and reactions.
Ruth, a hyper-practical woman, is the perfect contrast to the mischievously flirtatious Elvira. These two together, Ruth and Elvira with Charles in the middle, all bounce off each other with fluid ease. These scenes are some of the best theatre happening in Sydney right now.
Michael Booth plays Charles with deadpan, long-suffering restraint, enough to infuriate the women in his life (or not in his life), and leave plenty of room for delicious clapbacks.
Rosane McNamara directs with clear precision, blending the restrained drawing-room wit of Coward’s writing with clever slapstick that never goes too far as to pull us out of the story.
Her direction sets up each character’s world so precisely, vividly, richly that you can’t help but be drawn in. There’s loads of poltergeist slapstick with floating vases and wonderfully realistic reactions from the characters. There’s something satisfyingly amusing about watching someone talk to a ghost they can’t see and trying to make out what is there.
With excellent direction, New Theatre’s signature top-notch staging and lighting (Tom Bannerman and Michael Schell wielding their brilliance again), this production of Blithe Spirit is worth the night out.
Nöel Coward would be proud.
Blithe Spirit runs to 12 December at New Theatre, 542 King Street Newtown NSW 2081.
Tickets: https://shorturl.at/hqSOH
Website: https://newtheatre.org.au/blithe-spirit/
Socials: https://www.instagram.com/newtheatresydney/
Photo credits: Bob Seary
Leave a Reply