Noël Coward’s Hay Fever

Hay Fever, Noël Coward’s characteristically effervescent and sophisticated comedy of bad manners, fizzes with his unparalleled wit and biting satire.

Judith Bliss, glittering star of the London stage, floats through life taking every small incident as a cue for a big scene. When she and her eccentrically dysfunctional family all invite a guest to their country house, the innocent visitors arrive expecting a weekend of indulgent glamour. They step instead into a maelstrom of extravagant Bohemianism, outlandish behaviour and romantic machinations. The mishaps and misunderstandings mount and by Sunday morning the beleaguered guests are desperate to flee en masse, leaving the egotistical family so engaged in a blistering row that they fail to notice their clandestine departure.

Noël Coward’s plays include Private Lives, Present Laughter, Easy Virtue, Fallen Angels and Bitter Sweet as well as the Tonight at 8.30 series of short plays, produced as part of Festival 06.

Diana Rigg is Judith Bliss. One of the UK’s most distinguished actresses, she played Mme Ranyevskaya in Festival 08’s production of The Cherry Orchard and has recently appeared in the West End in Honour, Suddenly Last Summer and All About My Mother.

Simon Williams plays David Bliss. His West End credits include The Deep Blue Sea and The Winslow Boy as well as the tours of An Ideal Husband, Donkey’s Years and The 39 Steps. His television credits include The Gathering Storm, Don’t Wait Up, Holby City and Spooks as well as Upstairs, Downstairs .

Nikolai Foster’s recent productions include the national tours of The Witches of Eastwick, Aspects of Love and A Song at Twilight, as well as A Chorus Line and Assassins at Sheffield Theatres and A Streetcar Named Desire at Clwyd Theatr Cymru.

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