A perfectly pleasant, intermittently funny comedy of manners, but not contagious.Rating
Good
Perhaps Noël Coward‘s best-known comedy, Hay Fever arrives at Wyndham’s Theatre with lashings of star power and wit in an impressive, if unadventurous, revival. The ingredients are there: a glamorous cast, an exquisite country-house set and a comedy built around the deliciously unpleasant behaviour of an artistic family. What is missing, at least for now, is the spark to turn all that potential into something electric.
An immensely unlikeable upper-class family engage in detestable games, each inviting a guest to stay at their country retreat without telling the others. Judith Bliss, played by Tony award-winner Christine Baranski, is a now retired actress longing for the attention that her husband, David, has long withdrawn. He (played by the effortlessly charming Richard E. Grant) is an egocentric novelist desperate to finish his latest book. Their two children, Simon and Sorel, are equally repellent, occasionally showing glimmers of self-awareness before slipping back into the irritable playbook established by their parents.
Will Close is charming enough as Simon, though his squabbles with sister Sorel (Ophelia Lovibond) grow tiresome and he all but vanishes in the second half. Lovibond is faced with a character offering relatively little depth, but brings some welcome self-awareness to Sorel, who is perhaps the only Bliss capable of recognising just how absurd her family really is.
Baranski, however, is very much the star vehicle of the production, driving the drama with Judith’s over-the-top outbursts. Yet something in her performance feels external. Her English accent is perfectly passable, but the mannerisms and natural wit never quite settle into a convincing rhythm, leaving Judith feeling more like a caricature of the grand theatrical diva than a woman who has spent a lifetime being one. It is a striking contrast with Grant, whose apparently effortless comic timing generates considerably more energy despite his surprisingly limited stage time.
Among the supporting performances, Charles Edwards‘ awkward Greatham is equal parts cringe-inducing and hilarious, while Lucy Karczewski does well as the gloriously, unintentionally funny Jackie. The family’s insistence on playing a game of ‘guess the adverb’ is a highlight, with the characterisations coming through most strongly in these moments of elaborate social cruelty. Perhaps it is telling that the production is at its funniest when Coward’s characters are simply allowed to be awful to one another.
Emily Burns‘ direction keeps the pace of the evening’s capers moving steadily, although early conversations about flowers and a recital of Judith’s West End hit Love’s Whirlwind begin to drag. Frankie Bradshaw‘s set design is arguably the production’s greatest triumph, with a gloriously grand country manor that feels fully inhabited, providing an appropriately sumptuous playground for the Blisses’ narcissism.
The farcical elements of Coward’s comedy of manners are tantalisingly close to ripeness, and there is every reason to expect the comic timing to sharpen as the run progresses. A missing barometer is one of the evening’s funniest moments, but there are plenty more comic opportunities waiting to be unlocked by this cast. After prominent revivals led by Lindsay Duncan in 2012 and Felicity Kendal in 2015, this latest production has a considerable legacy of Judith Blisses to contend with – and, for all Baranski’s star power, it has yet to make the role entirely its own.
Perhaps the difficulty is partly the play itself. Hay Fever remains a remarkably durable piece of theatrical mischief, but its studied frivolity can feel more like a period curiosity than a living comedy unless a production finds a way to inject it with fresh danger. As yet, this is a mild case of Hay Fever: perfectly pleasant, intermittently funny, and not contagious.
Written by Noël Coward
Directed by Emily Burns
Set and Costume Design by Frankie Bradshaw
Lighting Design by Oliver Fenwick
Sound Design by Tingying Dong
Produced by Wessex Grove and Gavin Kalin Productions
Hay Fever plays at Wyndham’s Theatre until Saturday 12 December.
