Blithe Spirit Tickets

Blithe Spirit is a comedy play written brilliantly by English Playwright, composer and director Sir Noël Peirce Coward. The title of the play was inspired from the poem "To a Skylark" by Percy Bysshe Shelley. The play created history after its premier at the Piccadilly Theater in 1941, by becoming the longest running non-musical play in the West End, with around two thousand performances. The record was later broken in 1957 by the play "The Mousetrap." Blithe Spirit also enjoyed a good run on Broadway  with six hundred and fifty-seven performances. The play has been revived countless times ever since, the latest revival being in 2014.

The play centers on novelist Charles Condomine, his two wives and an odd medium, Madame Arcati. Charles is living happily with his second wife, Ruth in his docile country home. For research for his next novel, he invites Madame Arcati to his home to perform a séance. Arcati unwillingly and unknowingly summons Charles' first wife Elvira who has been dead for seven years. Arcati leaves without the knowledge that she has summoned Elvira.

This leaves Charles in a fix, as he has to think of a way to save his second marriage from the annoying and troublesome ghost of his first wife. The icing on the cake is that Charles is the only one who can hear or see the ghost. All hell breaks loose, as Elvira tries to sabotage Charles second marriage by reminding him of the countless days and nights they spent together. The play comically portrays excitement, tragedy and confusion devised ingeniously by the author.

Blithe Spirit was adapted into a comedy film in 1945 by director David Lean. The film won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects in 1947 and was also nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation. It has been also adapted as a TV series several times on both sides of the Atlantic. The play was adapted into a musical in 1964 with a Broadway run of three hundred and seventy-five performances and a three month run on the West End. BBC Radio has also adapted the play several times.

Blithe Spirit has received some very positive reviews from critics. In 1976, Irving Wardle of the Times had this to say for the play: "Stylistically, it is Coward's masterpiece: his most complete success in imposing his own view of things on the brute facts of existence." Charles Spencer of the Daily Telegraph wrote: "With Hay Fever and Private Lives, Blithe Spirit strikes me as being one of Coward's three indisputable comic masterpieces. The outrageous frivolity with which Coward treats mortality that makes the piece so bracing." New York Times praises the play as: "A laugh machine sheathed in satiny sophistication!" Wit... Style... Laughter... Why, it's the most spirited comedy you've seen in years."

Michael Blakemore's revival of the play includes famous stage actors Angela Lansbury, Charles Edwards, Jemima Rooper and Charlotte Parry. Angela Lansbury will reprise the role of the eccentric medium Madame Arcati in the play. Lansbury has won five Tony awards, and six Golden Globe Awards. She has been nominated eighteen times for Emmy awards and three Academy Awards without any win. Lansbury currently has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The Sunday Telegraph praises Lansbury as "Angela Lansbury possesses star quality in abundance!" The Sunday Times had this to say about this revival: "Angela Lansbury is the most richly entertaining Madame Arcati I've ever seen. Michael Blakemore's new production is a dream. Jemima Rooper plays Elvira to perfection. Very, very funny!"

Blithe Spirit has won quite a number of awards since its initial run. It has won one out of four Drama Desk Award nominations, one Drama League Award, one Theater World award and one out of four Outer Critics Circle Awards.

So if you love comedy plays and if you have not had the opportunity of watching this play before, then this is your chance. Witness the ingenious story unfold in front of you, as Blithe Spirit continues hitting the United States in 2015. All you have to do to is grab your Blithe Spirit Tickets and race towards the designated venues.