The central character to the play, and the main draw, is Madame Arcati.  This part could have been written for Jennifer Saunders, it gives her plenty of opportunity to display her excellent comic talent and she does not disappoint.  She has us all laughing with her sitting knees akimbo in the most unladylike posture, showing the inside of her thighs.  Not exactly Sharon Stone!  We love it when she arrives after a long bike ride, flapping her dress at the neckline and then hemline to cool off. She wears sensible brown lace up shoes and scratches her legs in a very unselfconscious way. 

After supper the séance is set up.  Madame Arcati warns everybody that she may dance around or lie down on the floor as she tries to get into contact with Daphne her spirit guide.  When the lights come back on, she is on the floor with both legs up, a yard apart, on the sofa. 

The séance having taken place, Charles’s ex-wife Elvira (Madeleine Mantock looking like another MM, Marilyn Monroe) has materialised but only seen by him.  As he talks back to Elvira whom no-one else can hear, he greatly confuses Ruth.  Elvira is both flirtatious and jealous of Charles’s new wife. 

Elvira castigates him, “Nobody but a monumental bore would have thought of having a honeymoon in Budleigh Salterton. I was an eager young bride Charles, I wanted glamour and music and romance. What I got, was potted palms, seven hours of every day on a damp golf-course and a three piece orchestra playing Merry England.”  Ruth on the other hand is prepared to accept that aspect of Charles’s character.

Charles finds himself caught between two wives but Ruth has a plan.  The minor characters come into play in the last act.  Richard Eyre gets fine performances from his experienced cast.  Geoffrey Streatfeild is outstanding as stuff shirt Charles and Lisa Dillon is most sympathetic as Ruth, displaced by an ethereal ex-wife. Noël Coward’s play is sprinkled with delightful witticisms but the real scene stealer on this occasion is Jennifer Saunders’s physical comedy.  This show is only booking to 6th November so don’t leave it too late!