Blithe Spirit with Alison Steadman at the Apollo 2 Mar 2011
The Theatre Royal Bath production of Noel Coward's Blithe Spirt, starring Alison Steadman as Madame Arcati, opens at the Apollo Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, 9 March 2011, following previews from 2 March - booking to 18 June 2011.
Directed by Thea Sharrock, designed by Hildegard Bechtler, lighting by Mark Henderson.
Alison Steadman's West End stage credits include "Enjoy" at the Gielgud Theatre in 2009; "Losing Louis" at Trafalgar Studios in 2005; "Woman Who Cooked Her Husband" at the New Ambassadors in 2002; "Entertaining Mr Sloane" at the Arts Theatre in 2001; "Memory of Water" at the the Vaudeville in 1999. Her films include 'Shirley Valentine' and Mike Leigh's 'Life Is Sweet' and 'Topsy Turvy'. Television work includes 'Fat Friends', 'Selling Hitler', 'The Singing Detective', 'Pride and Prejudice' and 'Gavin & Stacey'.
Novelist Charles Condomine and his second wife Ruth are literally haunted by a past relationship when an eccentric medium manages to conjure up the ghost of Charles's neurotic first wife, Elvira, at a seance. They have assumed the preposterous Madame Arcati is a fraud who will simply entertain their dinner guests with a little chicanery and supply Charles with material for his forthcoming novel. But when Elvira appears, visible only to Charles, and is determined to sabotage his current marriage, life - and the afterlife - begin to get complicated.
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