His old chums Ivor Novello and Terence Rattigan have struggled (in Novello's case, failed) to stay in fashion, but Noël Coward remains effortlessly en vogue: the last four years alone have seen West End productions of 'The Vortex', 'Brief Encounter', 'Private Lives', 'Design for Living' and 'Blithe Spirit'. But has he really dated so well?
Coward's semi-farcical 1925 comedy of manners, 'Hay Fever', tends to attract such crack casts (the lead role of Judith Bliss alone has been played by Marie Tempest, Edith Evans, Geraldine McEwan, Judi Dench and Diana Rigg) that it's rarely less than amusing. And this rock-solid revival from Howard Davies is no exception. But I can't help feel Coward's frothy study of a family of self-absorbed bohemian poshos stands up poorly next to current West End blockbusters 'Noises Off' and 'One Man, Two Guvnors', both richer, deeper, better-crafted and ultimately funnier works.
'Hay Fever's talk of open marriages and lax morals was undoubtedly subversive in its time, but in 2012 the unruly Bliss family don't seem to challenge the status quo so much as to embody the frivolous titting about of the one per cent.
But oh, what exquisite titting about Davies's production offers. Lindsay Duncan is a predictably brilliant Judith: chic, sexy, funny, entirely aware of what she is doing as she toys casually with a quartet of Bliss houseguests over the course of a weekend. And in an outstanding cast, Phoebe Waller-Bridge shines as daughter Sorel Bliss, heroically unselfconscious and clownishly physical. Bunny Christie's elegantly dishevelled country house set and ravishing '20s costumes are to die for.
Everything is immaculate in fact, apart from Coward's arch, hollow text: unfortunate for his first revival in this building since it took his name in 2006.