News: Madeleine Mantcock joins Blithe Spirit in the West End

Full cast has been announced for the West End production of Noel Coward’s classic comedy Blithe Spirit at the Harold Pinter Theatre.

Starring comedy legend Jennifer Saunders as Madame Arcati, and directed by Sir Richard Eyre, the show is set to run from 16 September to 6 November.

Film and television star Madeleine Mantcock (Charmed, The Long Song, Edge of Tomorrow) is set to make her West End debut as Elvira, completing the cast.

Original cast members from the Theatre Royal Bath production, returning for this run, include Geoffrey Streatfeild as Charles Condomine, Lisa Dillon as Ruth Condomine, Simon Coates as Dr Bradman, Lucy Robinson as Mrs Bradman and Rose Wardlaw as Edith.

The show features design by Anthony Ward, lighting by Howard Harrison, sound by John Leonard and illusions by Paul Kieve.

Written in 1941, Blithe Spirit is Coward’s inventive, witty and meticulously engineered comedy that remains one of the playwright’s most popular works.

Novelist Charles Condomine and his second wife Ruth are literally haunted by a past relationship when an eccentric medium inadvertently conjures up the ghost of his first wife, Elvira, at a séance. When she appears, visible only to Charles, and determined to sabotage his current marriage, life – and the afterlife – get complicated.

The show previously had a sold-out run at Theatre Royal Bath in 2019, a UK tour and a short run of just 12 performances before the country’s lockdown cut short its six week run at the Duke of York’s Theatre in March 2020.

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