High spirits on show

Sprightly seance . . . The Coliseum’s production of Blithe Spirit. Pictured (from left) Roberta Kerr, Emily Pithon, Alwyne Taylor, Mark Healy, Christopher Wilkinson and (rear), Amy Hall as Elvira

BLITHE SPIRIT, Oldham Coliseum

COLISEUM productions occasionally have a rough and ready look that makes you think they weren’t quite ready when the curtain went up.

No fears this time: not just top choice for the show Coliseum regulars most wanted to see — even if it is almost 70 years old; but a cracking evening that will have those same people smugly intoning how right they were.

Director Robin Herford’s assured and funny production breathes warmth into a Noel Coward comedy that is often played for the wrong laughs in the wrong places and ends up seeming as if no one really wants to be there.

Herford picks a strong cast, trusts the author’s talent and lets them all get on with it.

And his masterstroke is in not letting the character of the “current” wife, Ruth, whinge until we are sick of her.

Truth is, after the glorious performance of Alwyne Taylor as Madame Arcati, which I’ll get to in a moment, Emily Pithon as Ruth is the best thing in the show; warm, strongly timed for all her laughs and a real, flesh and blood woman.

We sometimes forget that, behind his urbane charm, Coward could be quite cruel.

His talent here is not in making us laugh, but in doing so with a story that is basically about a novelist who doesn’t like being married all that much, who wasn’t too distraught when first wife Elvira died, who is beginning to tire of his second wife and doesn’t seem all that worried when the ghost of Elvira goes around trying to murder him. Talk about existential...

The medium, literally, for the mayhem is of course spiritualist Madame Arcati. Alwyne Taylor’s performance is a joy: eccentric, driven, energetic and timed to perfection. It’s one of the funniest and most pleasurable performances I’ve seen at the Coliseum in quite a while.

But the pleasure is pretty much total: Mark Healy is an urbane, suitably condescending Charles, Amy Hall pale and sexily mischievous as Elvira, Roberta Kerr and Christopher Wilkinson fun as the dinner guests, Liz Carney enjoyably dim-witted as the maid.

The evening runs smoothly, the ghostly effects are spot-on and even Michael Holt’s drawing room design looks nice enough to live in.

You’ll leave the theatre (until June 6) in high spirits.