Hay Fever

by Noel Coward

seen at the Duke of York's Theatre on 13 May 2015

This revival of a famous farce from 1925 is not entirely successful; its main claim to attention is Felicity Kendal, who plays the matriarch Judith Bliss. Judith's super-dramatic style as a recently not-so-retired theatre doyenne controls the behaviour of her husband and two children and leads to the general mayhem that farce feeds on. Kendal's performance is flawlessly timed and full of the necessary mannerisms and abrupt changes of register, but the remaining cast are not so adept at the form, and there is too much shouting and too little subtlety.

The play itself shows its age, and some of its comic references are now irretrievably dated and consequently no longer funny. The first act in particular lacked energy, though the ludicrous goings-on in the second act raised the level considerably.

I wonder if perhaps the streak of narcissistic cruelty that features in several of Coward's plays as leavening for the comedy (for example 'Design for Living' and 'Private Lives') is weaker here, or if it was just not allowed sufficient head in this production.