Noël Coward’s 1941 comedy is a ghost story, but the only spooky aspect of Thea Sharrock’s tedious revival is how much gurning it features. The performances, on a curvily elegant eau-de-nil set by Hildegard Bechtler, are robotic and woefully unfunny.
Chief offender is Alison Steadman as Madame Arcati, the tweedy medium who summons the spirit of novelist Charles Condomine’s deceased first wife, Elvira. She flaps about and emits loud grunts in the course of her paranormal investigations. Such lumpen efforts at hilarity feel painfully forced – but only slightly more than those of Ruthie Henshall as the mischievous revenant. Presumably trying for sexy impishness, she grins so hard and toothily that you fear her face will crack. Hermione Norris as Ruth, the second wife, is stiff and frosty, and Robert Bathurst’s Charles is blandly bumbling.
Admittedly, the play is a work of brittle wit and little emotional depth, but here it’s an unoiled machine. There’s certainly nothing very blithe on offer here; on the contrary, endure this, and you might find that death loses its sting.