27 March 2014, The Tablet

Blithe Spirit


Theatre

 
The question of whether to make a point of someone’s age is traditionally delicate – and especially with actresses, who have been known to knock a few years off in reference books – but there is no avoiding the fact that the greatest distinction of the new West End production of Noël Coward’s Blithe Spirit is the fact that its leading lady is 88. And, after the Saturday matinee I saw, there was the extraordinary thought that Dame Angela Lansbury was going to do it all for a second time that day in just over two hours.Performing in her native country for the first time in almost 40 years, the expat actress plays, in a UK version of the Broadway production by Michael Blakemore that won her a fifth Tony Award in 2009, Madame Arcati, the medium who is invited to t
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